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LaVilla students' two-act opera
production inspired by Mozart's 'Don
Giovanni'
Find our dream home toda! Middle schoolers wrote music and libretto for 'Jared,' a modern morality tale
By David Crumpler | [email protected] Sat, Apr 9, 2016 @ 9:29 am | updated Sat, Apr 9, 2016 @ 9:55 am
BACK PHOTO: 1 OF 11 NEXT [email protected]
Students at LaVilla School of the Arts on stage during a
practice session in the school's theatre for their upcoming
performance of "Jared", an opera they have conceived and
produced Thursday, March 31, 2016. (The Florida Times­
Union/Bob Self)
Here’s something you don’t
expect to hear very often: a group
of middle school students talking
about how much they love opera.
They admit they’re a little
surprised themselves, this group
of five, sitting outside a
classroom at LaVilla School of the
Arts.
t. John, Florida
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What hooked them, they said, was the simple
act of watching one.
Eighth­grader Hanna Frampton, 14, recalled the
first time she saw a live opera production. It
was, she said, “insanely cool.”
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“You have to see it to get the full blast of it,” she
said.
The other students nodded. They’d been
introduced to opera through high­definition
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simulcasts of live performances from the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
In a few minutes, they would all be heading
down the hall to rehearse their own, original
opera, “Jared.”
It’s almost entirely the creation of LaVilla
students. They composed nearly all the music
and wrote the libretto, and on Thursday and
Friday, they will perform it for audiences in the
school’s LaVilla Theater.
“Jared” is a modern morality tale inspired by Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” said eighth­grader
Jeremy Barber, 14, who has the title role and also composed some of the music.
“Don Giovanni” is known to opera fans as the arrogant young libertine who uses and abuses
everyone around him and refuses to repent.
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In similar fashion, Jared misuses opportunity and personal freedom and “hurts a lot of
people” in the process, Barber said. “It shows that just because you want something, getting
it isn’t always good.”
‘A FULL ARTISTIC PIECE’
Bringing “Jared” to life has meant months of hard work by many students, said Shawn
Pendry, vocal director at LaVilla and manager of the project. In all, 36 singers, 40 musicians,
nine dancers and about 50 technical and set workers committed to the effort, which got
underway more than a year ago. About 10 teachers have also been involved.
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Pendry found inspiration for “Jared” from a “pastiche opera” titled “The Frosted Land” that
LaVilla students created in 2012. He took the idea from the Metropolitan Opera, which
borrowed music from the Baroque era, came up with new words and a story and presented it
as “The Enchanted Island.”
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Basically, the pastiche concept allowed Pendry to “kidnap other people’s music and rewrite
it,” he said. “We wrote a good story in weeks. It made me wonder what the students were
really capable of. I decided then that we could do a full artistic piece.”
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“Jared” started with a storyline created by members of Pendry’s music composition class.
“They wrote a really powerful character,” Pendry said, then had to determine his fate.
“Are we going to give him the chance to repent?” Pendry asked. “We put it to a vote.”
Some students said yes, let Jared show remorse and perhaps allow him a chance for
salvation. Others wanted a fiery demise for Jared, similar to Don Giovanni’s. (Note to
readers: This article contains no spoilers.)
“Once we had a story, we wrote character descriptions and scene summaries,” he said. Eight
theater students then wrote the libretto, with a few more adding to the material once
rehearsals began.
A total of 12 student composers contributed to the score. They worked independently of each
other, but ”listened to each other’s music throughout the creative process,” Barber said.
Still, no one was expected to try to duplicate someone else’s musical style.
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“The most important thing was to make the music fit together through transitions,” said
Frampton, who also has a singing role as Jared’s mother.
When she heard about “Jared,” Demi Nicks, a former LaVilla student, now 22 and composing
music professionally, volunteered to write the overture for the opera, Pendry said.
Vocal rehearsals started in November with Theresa King, a LaVilla teacher and trained opera
singer.
“We had to get the music down before we could get to the acting,” Frampton said. One of the
most important things you learn when you’re singing in opera, she said, is “knowing when to
breathe.”
Seventh­grader Carter Pike, 13, has the role of an innocent youth “like you see in teen
dramas,” he said. “Jared” has helped him understand how different voices are right for
different roles.
Pike is an alto, and the fact that he sings in a higher range is ideal for the character, Pendry
said.
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“Carter's voice sounds vulnerable,” he said. “It has a natural innocence.”
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The students were excited, but no one fully anticipated how much work would be involved.
The cast typically rehearsed after school four days a week.
“I thought, ‘OK, I’ll try out, it will be like a fall play,’ ” said eighth­grader Alice Woodward, 13,
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who plays one of Jared’s caretakers.
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But nobody's complaining about the commitment that “Jared” has required.
Contrary to the cautionary theme in “Jared," the LaVilla students have found that really
wanting something can, in fact, be very good.
“If anybody told me I’d be in an opera in the eighth grade, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said
Akai McDaniel, 13, who plays one of Jared's “pawns.”
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“Now I actually tear up at the thought of it ending,” she said.
“We're the ‘Jared’ family,” Pike said.
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“This is our fun,” Woodward said.
“There's just no beach time,” Barber said.
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The opera will be presented in two acts, each lasting about 45 minutes, with a 20­minute
intermission, Pendry said.
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opera, the complexity, and have done something we’ve never done at this school before.”
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