After the orchestra tunes and the audience settles in their seats, the curtains open with a grand flourish. The high trill of the piccolo introduces two characters, Marcello (Chris Fukuda) and Rodolfo (Nathan Park). Marcello’s baritone voice booms over the orchestra, and the two characters burn the pages of Rodolfo’s latest drama to feed their firepit. This is the opening scene of Great Neck South High School’s 2024 opera production, La Bohème.
Composed by Giacomo Puccini, La Bohème tells the tragic love story of Mimi (Deirdre Chan) and Rodolfo. The story takes place in Paris after the French Revolution and the four main characters—Mimi, Musetta (Kelly Hon), Rodolfo, and Marcello—are struggling artists. Despite their poverty, Mimi and Rodolfo fall in love. However, they separate because of Mimi’s declining health. As a final wish, Musetta helps Mimi return to Rodolfo and the opera ends in tragedy and heartbreak as Mimi succumbs to her illness, leaving Rodolfo, Musetta, and Marcello devastated.
Opera is sung in a classical style and in a higher key than most performers are used to; students must be trained in this style to perform the music accurately. Additionally, opera singing places a great strain on the voice, making it a difficult theater form to master—a feat seemingly impossible for high school students. “We’re doing something that many consider to be far out of reach and taking on that challenge. Fortunately, we have students who are motivated, interested, and have the skill set,” Mr. Michael Schwartz, the instrumental director, said.
Led by Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Robert Stivanello, the artistic director, and the vocal director, Dr. Janine Robinson, students learned the original Italian, grasping meaning and emotion within the bars of music. This opera required considerable coordination between the conductor, orchestra, and singers. “I think, musically speaking, this opera is more challenging than the last two years,” senior Ethan Lin, who played Benoît, stated, “but I think it can be a good thing—there may be some anxiety to completely learn the music and blocking to make it stage-worthy, but we pull through, as always.”
The opera is a full-year dedicated production: Orientation starts in September, auditions and cast announcements happen in October, and intense rehearsals begin in January, lasting until the curtains part on opening night. While many rehearsals take place during the four months leading up the opera, the final tech rehearsal combines lighting, instrumentals, sound, performers, and the various professionally made backdrops and costumes (from the Stivanello Costume Company). Thus, hours of work turn into a polished, complete performance.
The student’s efforts were spotlighted during both nights of the opera as the production shattered all expectations of high school opera. With strong and resounding voices, the four leads captivated the audience with their singing: Deirdre Chan and Kelly Hon, the two sopranos, hit extraordinarily high notes that most people their age cannot attain. The student’s acting elicited laughter from the audience in moments of comedy, such as the back-and-forth banter of Marcello, Rodolfo, Schaunard (Nandini Khaneja), and Colline (David Kagan) as they staged a mock fight in act four. This humorous scene was an antithesis of the next minute, when Musetta interrupts the four men with news that Mimi is too weak to climb the stairs to their apartment. The seamlessness of this abrupt mood shift reflects the time the student dedicated to the opera to make it flawless.
While the student actors played a large role, the orchestra and stage crew both contributed to make the performances a success. The pit orchestra complimented the acting with their sorrowful, but at times, playful instrumentals. The orchestra began learning the two hours of complex and continuous musical score in September. After playing parts of it during the fundraising concert in March, they began to perfect their playing in the three months leading up to the opera. The stage crew also displayed tremendous effort, handling almost the entire technical side of the opera. They handled everything from costume alterations and fittings to set changes and general backstage management.
South High School students were not the only ones acting on stage however: South Middle School students with an interest in opera made an appearance during the second act of the opera—the second time this has happened in the program’s history.
In the past, South High School has produced operas such as Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) garnering attention as one of the only high schools to annually produce an opera. In 1970, Mrs. Diane Martindale, the choral teacher at that time, originally introduced opera to South High School, beginning the enduring tradition. As the music department was small, “the opera was its big claim to fame,” Mr. Schwartz emphasized. “[And now] this is our fifty-fourth year doing it.”
There is no doubt that this was an emotional opera, and a core memory for the four seniors—Deirdre Chan, Kelly Hon, Nathan Park, and Ethan Lin—graduating. “It’s a bittersweet feeling knowing that this is probably the last time I will do something like this,” Ethan shared. “[Performing in the opera] was, literally and figuratively, a beautiful and breathtaking experience and one that I won’t forget.”
