Admittedly, opera can be an acquired taste, one many adults grow to appreciate, but an event most children find difficult to sit through. But this summer, Walnut Grove and Harvest Park students Brandon Yim, Hunter Milano, Zayn Mufti and Adam Chase not only sat through an entire opera, they performed in one, as the boys sang, danced and acted in the Festival Opera’s presentation of “Carmen.”
“Carmen,” the famous French opera by composer Georges Bizet, ran for four shows and one preview performance at the Dean Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek during the beginning of July. The production then went up to St. Helena, near Napa, for one outdoor performance.
The opera tells the story of Carmen, an alluring Spanish gypsy who inspires passion in the young soldier Don Jose, but then provokes his jealous rage when she transfers her favors to the brash toreador, Escamillo. The four Pleasanton students were part of the street boy chorus along with eight other boys from other local towns, which is featured in the first and last acts of the opera.
“Our characters were just rambunctious; we’d steal oranges and really admire the soldiers,” said Milano, 11.
While many young boys and girls have sung in a choir or performed in a school musical or play, performing in an opera presents different challenges. Most obviously is memorizing songs that are in an entirely different language, especially in the case of “Carmen” which is in French. This also meant that the boys didn’t completely understand the plot when they started rehearsing the music.
“I didn’t know the storyline, so my mom had to fill me in,” said Yim, 12.
But, as Milano pointed out, “Carmen” is one of the more ubiquitous operas with many TV shows and movies using melodies from the show, making the tunes recognizable to the boys.
The older boys at least knew what an opera was, but for Chase, 6, who was the youngest in the cast by five years, the concept was entirely new.
“He didn’t really know what an opera was, but he’d studied composers in kindergarten, so he had a little bit of ground work for it,” said Rhoda Chase, Adam’s mom. “It’s funny that his first opera was the one he was in.”
For all the boys, the challenge and opportunity to be in a professional-level production made them all the more excited to get involved. Rehearsals started in March, first with the boys practicing as a chorus together and later working with the rest of the cast. They spent hours each day in rehearsals as the show drew near.
“You really have to be passionate about it because it’s a huge time commitment,” said Leslie Milano, Hunter’s mother.
When opening night finally came, the boys admitted they were a little nervous, except for Chase who is still young enough to be blissfully unabashed about his singing talents, but when the curtains went up the show was a smash.
“The first night was the most significant,” Milano said. “We were all on our A-game and it was completely flawless the first night.”
Working together on such an intense project, the boys became close with each other, as well as some of the other singers in the cast, who became role models of sorts.
“A lot of boys tend to drop out (of choirs) around middle school and high school because they don’t think it’s cool, but the men in the opera, they’ve gone some where with singing; they’ve made a career out of it,” said Emily Yim, Brandon’s mother.
Of the professional singers in the cast, the boys mostly worked with Eugene Brancoveanu who played Escamillo, and Rhonda Chase said he was particularly kind and always there to help the boys.
Students learn a lot and take their singing and acting to the next level when they work on these types of productions because of the chance to work with professional adults, said Sharolyn Borris, Walnut Grove music teacher and the person who informed the boys of the production when she sent out a mass email about auditions.
“The only way to learn opera or musicals is to do it, and we do a lot of performances at Walnut Grove, but to get out there and be with other like-minded kids brings it up a level, and to work with adults is a an opportunity I can’t provide at the elementary school,” Borris said. “It takes hours and hours to rehearse and put an opera on; it takes team work and dedication, and that’s what yields satisfaction on opening night.”
Now that the show is over, the boys are looking to continue their acting and singing in other venues. In fact, Yim is already working on the Livermore Valley Opera’s production of “La Boheme,” which opens in October. Of all the boys, Yim has the most opera experience, having worked on a production of “The Magic Flute” with the San Francisco and Livermore operas prior to “Carmen.”
Through all the hard work and long nights, the boys have fun performing, which is why they will keep pursuing other musical opportunities.
“It was fun; I had no worries–I just sang and it was fine,” Chase said.
