Opera Together Performance of La Boheme Comes to MTS!

Mount Tamalpais School students enjoyed an engaging and dynamic Opera Together performance of La Boheme this week! The community was thrilled to have professional opera singers filling the gym with the lush vibrations of their singing telling the poignant story of La Boheme, a Giacomo Puccini opera set in Paris in 1830. 

Opera Together is a program sponsored by the San Francisco Opera Guild. An opera that is normally 3 hours in length is shortened into a 45-minute kid-friendly performance in English. Four professional opera singers and one professional pianist took the lead singing roles in the production and then eleven of our 8th graders had acting roles (without operatic singing) and the rest of the 8th grade sang in the chorus. 

The goal of these productions is to introduce and expose the art of opera to students. Lilianna Parker, MTS music teacher, prepared students in all grades in advance of the performance by playing them samples of opera singing and telling them about the story of La Boheme. 

The story is set in Paris in 1830 depicting the Bohemian lifestyle of a seamstress, painter, poet, musician, and philosopher during a freezing cold winter. The poet, Rodolfo, falls in love with a young woman named Mimi, who turns out to be extremely ill. In their poverty, Rodolfo and his friends find that they cannot properly provide for her and are awoken to the harsh realities of life. 

This special program was truly a treat for our students, and we’re thankful that we had the opportunity to bring the San Francisco opera into our school.