About a month ago, the setting for one of our stories was Italy. Mrs. Yollis played some Italian opera in class. Mr. Mann, an opera expert, came to our class and taught us about the opera, La Boheme. It’s a story about four friends who were very poor and lived in Paris. One of them met a girl and fell in love with her. But she got sick and died. Mr. Mann played music from the opera for us and brought pictures of a few scenes.
Some of the songs were happy songs like when everyone was out at a parade. Some of the songs were beautiful, mushy, love songs. There were very depressing songs too at the end when the girl died. All of the songs helped tell the story and set the mood of the opera.
I interviewed Mr. Mann over the phone after the lecture and asked him a couple of questions.
C – “What did you think about coming in to lecture to our class?”
MM – “I was looking forward to it and I enjoyed it very much.”
C – “ How did you think the kids behaved?”
MM – “ I thought I would only talk for 15 minutes, but I went much longer because everyone was paying such good attention. They were so smart and so wonderful. This was my first time speaking to children and it was a treat.”
C – “Have you gone to a lot of operas?’
MM – “Yes, I have.”
C - “What was your favorite?”
MM – “La Boheme – the one I talked about.”
C – “ Is there really a fat lady with a hat with horns on it that sings in an opera?”
MM – “Sometimes.”
Thanks for reading!
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