Expanding horizons

Warning: Post about Alex follows. My plan was to avoid posting about him here but since I have nothing to report for today and it is opera related, I broke from my plan. So...

I really have to figure out a way to interest Alex in other operas besides Magic Flute. He likes specific arias and instrumentals from a few others, but he still asks to listen to and/or watch MF every single day, several times a day. Today on YouTube I found the Bugs Bunny Barber of Seville episode so we watched that. It'll probably get removed for copyright infringement soon so I'm glad we got to see it. But that's not the same, obviously! Maybe this Saturday's broadcast will be on PBS in a few weeks and I can tape it. Or maybe I'll ask Amy to Tivo and burn it for me.

At least he's watching more than just Papageno. I got him hooked on the performance prep stuff they show during the overture, then he likes Tamino fleeing from the serpent, so that's cool. He also likes the first Queen of the Night aria, or as he puts it, "The song where she sings really high." He gets upset when Monostatos is onscreen, although he's ok with the German version, so it must be the costume and makeup. I got him to watch the scene where Papageno and Pamina sing together after enchanting the slaves with the bells. Then we had to watch it like 5 times in a row. I wish the English version had their other duet. He'll also watch anything with the 3 boys. Makes sense, they're more his size!

So the other opera pieces he likes (and bear with me as I don't know how to spell everything):

The overtures to Barber of Seville and Marriage of Figaro
Champagne aria from Don Giovanni
Largo al Factotum from Barber (the "Hey, Figaro" song)
Non Piu Andrai from Marriage of Figaro (the "castle song" because the english version we have has the word castle in it)
Toreador Song from Carmen
Habanera from Carmen (sometimes we'll sing, "no no no, no no no no...")
Instrumental- Carmen Suite - (one part of that is " The Big Song")
Donna e Mobile from Rigoletto (Beethoven's Wig version too of course!)

And then non-opera, classical music:

Rondo Alla Turca, or as he calls it, The Piano Song - Mozart
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - Mozart
Surprise Symphony- Haydn
Different parts of the Nutcracker -Tchaikovsky
1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky
Peter and the Wolf

There are many others that have numbers only so I don't remember what they're called, and since we're often in the car I can't sit there reading the CD case. But he does have his code names for the pieces, or else he'll sing a bit of it, to let me know what he wants to hear. He used to sing bits of what he wanted to hear before he could talk.


Ok, on to another unrelated (sort of) topic.

I'll probably edit this all out tomorrow. But now it's truly bedtime.

Edited on 3/22: As predicted, I took it out. :)