Singer Jon Bon Jovi asks kindergartners to ‘Do What You Can’

Fleming, Netrebko, Kaufmann headline Met Opera on-line gala

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla, April 15, (AP): A Florida kindergarten teacher took his virtual classroom to new levels on Monday when rock icon Jon Bon Jovi popped in on a writing lesson about life in the coronavirus quarantine.

Last month, the Grammy award-winning 80s rocker released an incomplete version of “Do What You Can,” which is a ballad about the nation’s battle to contain the virus, and asked fans to submit verses to help complete it, the Palm Beach Post reported.

Michael Bonick, a teacher at Marsh Pointe Elementary School in Palm Beach Gardens and life-long Bon Jovi fan, saw the singer’s invitation and found contact information online for a member of Bon Jovi’s staff. He sent along his students’ writings about being stuck at home in quarantine.

A staffer replied that Bon Jovi wanted to meet the kids, and he popped onto their laptop screens at 10 am Monday.

“Mr B got you guys writing and I was very excited to hear that,” the former Bon Jovi frontman told the students, “because if you get to put your feelings down on paper sometimes they’ll turn into songs, sometimes they’ll turn into stories and you never know where it might lead you.”

So far, the singer has received thousands of proposals online, some of which he works into performances of the song that he broadcasts online from his home in New Jersey.

As the 20 kindergartners – and their parents – watched, Bon Jovi strummed an acoustic guitar and sang out three kindergartners’ writing prompts about life in quarantine, each one touching on themes of idleness and isolation.

After singing eight lines ending with, “My parents try their best/But I can tell that they’re stressed,” he congratulated the author, a boy named

A.J.

“You’re a rock and roll star,” he said. “We wrote this one together, me and you buddy.”

Bonick made the homework assignment last week and encouraged the young children to write about where they are and who they are with. He said the recurring theme was being stuck at home, which is fine because he wants the young writers to document their lives in such an extraordinary time.

“Once we get out of this – because we will get out of this – it’s history,” he said.

A lifelong Bon Jovi fan, Bonick had seen the singer’s invitation to fans to propose their own lyrics for “Do What You Can.”

“They were blown away,” Bonick said. “They loved every minute of it.”

Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel are among 38 opera stars in 13 nations scheduled for the Metropolitan Opera’s At-Home gala, which will be streamed live on April 25 starting at 1 pm EDT.

Singers will perform live from their homes and transmit via Skype to All Mobile Video, whose equipment is used for the Met’s high definition broadcasts to theaters during the season. The show is designed to be a fundraiser for the organization; there will be a donate button on the landing page of the website. The gala, expected to last about three hours, will air on the Met’s website and will be available for replay until 6:30 pm EDT the next day.

“This is something that will be, I think, endearing as a live event,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said Monday. “But it’s truly subject to the quality of the individual Internet lines.”

Some artistes quarantined as couples will perform together: Netrebko and tenor Yusif Eyvazov in Vienna; Alagna and soprano Aleksandra Kurzak in Le Raincy, France; Terfel and Hannah Stone, former official harpist to Britain’s Prince Charles, in Wales; tenor Stephen Costello and Met violinist Yoon Kwon Costello in New York; and soprano Nicole Car and bass-baritone Etienne Dupuis in Paris.

Singers include Diana Damrau, Javier Camarena, Elina Garanda, René Pape and Piotr Beczala.

Gary Halvorson will direct from Los Angeles and Gelb will host from his apartment in New York.

In the lone prerecorded segment, Met music director Yannick NézetSéguin will play a piano version of the meditation from Massenet’s “Thaïs” from his apartment in Montreal, coordinating with Met concertmaster David Chan from Closter, New Jersey.

Artistes used to jetting around the globe are struck at home with times on their hands – and vocal cords.

“They’re available since they’ve nothing else to do,” Gelb said. “A few of them said to me this will give them a reason to start practicing.”

The Met has not performed since March 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic and has canceled the rest of its season. It started an emergency fundraising drive of $50 million to $60 million in an attempt to make up the shortfall in its $308 million budget. The company stopped pay of unionized workers on March 31, including the orchestra and chorus, and cut pay of administrative staff earning more than $125,000.