Art and music programs can sometimes be de-emphasized when schools try to make room for new technology and media centers. However, Public School No. 4 in West New York has found a way to keep students interested in the arts.
The school’s eight fourth grade gifted and talented students put on “A Night at the Opera” on March 30, which included scenes from Madame Butterfly, Tommy, Carmen and La Boheme. The students will be performing their opera again at Memorial High School in May.
“A lot of times, the arts get lost,” said Anne Capelli one of the school’s gifted and talented program teachers. “It brought the arts to them a little bit.”
The students definitely enjoyed being on stage and learning about different operas.
“At first I thought opera was going to be boring,” said Ruth Jimenez who played the maid, Suzuki, in Madame Butterfly. “But then we got into it.”
“As you can tell by watching their performance on stage, this is something they really have the desire to learn,” said Capelli.
“If teachers show that they are very serious,” added vocal music teacher Pablo Rodriguez, “then the students will be too.”
The students learned a series of different operas and eventually were able to pick the four that they performed. “We tried to pick the most dramatic,” said Melanie Naranjo, the fourth grade student that sang Habanera from the opera Carmen written by Beorge Bizet in 1874.
“At first I didn’t think that it was an actual opera because it wasn’t dramatic,” said Alex Concepcion, after singing Pinball Wizard and Tommy from the rock opera Tommy written by Peter Townshend in 1968.
According to Capelli, the students hardly had any time to practice for the production at all. The students began rehearsing for the show in February with Nicole Kovar, but had to stop rehearsing in March when Kovar went on maternity leave.
“In last two weeks we tried hard to wrap it all together,” said Anne Capelli, the teacher that took over the project for Kovar.
Many of the students practiced after school and at home on the weekends.
“I practiced my song 25 times without stopping [one Saturday],” said Gabriella Parson, who sang Quando Men Vo from La Boheme, written in 1895 by Giacomo Puccini.
Rodriguez said that he stayed after school to work with some students.
“I worked on this after school,” said Rodriguez, who only teaches in the school twice a week. “I didn’t use class time to work on this.”
The students wore costumes that were appropriate for each production.
“The costumes came from all over the place,” said Capelli, who added that many of the teachers helped in gathering the costumes. “Some were props from ages ago.”