future opera stars

Yesterday evening we went to the first rehearsal for the North Cambridge Family Opera production we find ourselves taking part in. Despite his relative enthusiasm at the audition Elijah decided he didn't want to do the show so he stayed home; Zion also decided—very decidedly—that he didn't want to either, but I made him go. We make these children do very few things, so when one of them loves singing and acting and has a beautiful voice and great stage presence but resists trying new things sometimes he doesn't get to refuse. Don't worry, he had a fine time! They haven't assigned roles yet, but we have our voice parts so we could start working on the choruses: Harvey is singing alto, I've become a bass in my old age, and Zion—along with all the other preteens—is singing "melody", which means he can sing along with whatever sounds like the melody to him at any point. Which he's quite good at. Besides the singing we also started learning some dances, which was harder, but still fun. This morning Zion was showing us how he remembered the moves better than the rest of us. I think he'll do ok.