The Butterfly Effect

During the PBS Opera Week earlier this month Troy saw a glimpse of the Met’s Madama Butterfly with Patricia Racette in the title role ( exactly, the girl whose Tosca I reviewed earlier this month). He got interested and wanted more, but it was his bedtime, so PBS was off and to bed he went.

In the Kennedy Center Souvenir Shop I got this book for Troy, which he absolutely loved! Every time he sees it, he asks me to read it to him.

So I thought, why don’t I get the opera for him. After all, surprising as it is for a toddler to be into Puccini's music, the question is: why not? It's beautiful. And if he is old enough to love Verdi, he might as well love Puccini.

All right, I admit: there are people in this world who like Puccini much more than I do. Yet, I am not going to deny the powerful effect that Puccini’s music makes on human hearts, including the heart of my son, who hasn’t been able to get enough of that opera and demands to hear it again and again ever since the DVD arrived.

Even during our cuddling time these days he asks me to sing the Humming Chorus. Not the easiest thing to do, by the way, let me tell you that. But – I am trying to get the hang of it.

On another, yet still a relevant note, in Troy’s music class, one of the tasks is to move to a certain song with silk scarves in both hands. Before I could see that Troy was not that into it. I could see that it kind of did not make sense to him or maybe he did not like the music he was supposed to move to. Drumming or egg shaking has been a different story, but with the scarves…something was off.

However, yesterday I saw Troy picking up my two scarves and moving to the music of Madama Butterfly. He finally found his scarf music.