Every other year, James's teacher, Mrs. Parrish, has the children research, write, stage, make props and costumes and then perform an opera. An opera is defined as a performance in which the actors sing all or most of the words. In general operas last over 2 hours at least. Moon War lasted 13 minutes. I don't think Mrs. Parrish could've handled a longer one. The basic story line is this: monkeys exist on a moon and are happy to be the only ones to inhabit the moon. "Strange Creatures" come and threaten to take over the moon. The strange creatures bring cheetahs and peacocks as their slaves to begin chopping down trees, but the monkeys don't think having slaves is a good idea. War ensues. Explorers enter and want a piece of the land as well. The monkeys don't like all the fighting and realize that there is enough land to share with work and cooperation.
James was one of the monkeys (the cutest one in my opinion), a perfect role for him because monkeys are his favorite animals.
It was my pleasure to accompany the opera. This is my second opera, since Spencer's class landed on an opera year as well. We performed twice, once for the school and once for family.
For their Christmas program, Mrs. Parrish teaches the students to play the ukelele, so when they wrote the opera, they decided they wanted to use the ukeleles again. While it didn't really fit in the opera genre (I don't think Mozart would've written ukeleles in), it was a fun addition.
In this picture you can see most of the characters: a cheetah, two peacocks, two monkeys, three strange creatures and two explorers.
Seriously. Is there a cuter monkey?
I loved working together with James. As I practiced at home, he would help me with the tempo and sing along so I could get a feel with the playing a singing together.
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