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Second graders write, stage, and sing an original opera, while mastering the three R's.
Enunciate! Watch your stance! Stay in character!" It's a few weeks until opening night for the 27 members of the Little Fireworks Kids Opera Company at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, and second-grade teacher Mary Ruth McGinn sits cross-legged at the back of the cafeteria, coaching the five performers on stage.
With seriousness beyond their tender ages, the children respond quickly to the sophisticated vocabulary even though only one is a native English speaker. In other rooms students, each with specific jobs within the opera company, work with teachers and volunteers, furiously fashioning the electric footlights, composing music, painting scenery, practicing makeup application, designing publicity flyers, and calling invited guests who haven't yet replied to written invitations.
Such was the scene before last spring's opera, "Old Memories, New Hopes," the culmination of a yearlong effort. McGinn and co-teacher Ellen Levine integrate creation of the opera into the entire curriculum. Music teachers Emily Hines, Sandy Eichler, and Larry Joynes have joined in the endeavor, now starting its third year at the school,...