Les Miserables is a musical that was performed by the Granite Hills Choir and the music production class on the night of April 9, 2008 in the Porterville Memorial Auditorium. The show was $5 and had a great turnout.

Photo taken by Valerie Jasso

Les Miserables Dazzles Audience
Sara Rodriquez| 04/11/08 | Fine Arts

Music lovers gathered in the Porterville Memorial Auditorium on Wednesday, April 9, to hear Granite Hills High School’s choir and musical theatre perform in the spring concert. The concert started at 7:00 P.M. and cost $5.

The big talk of the night was the incorporation of classic musicals into the concert. On Granite’s campus, students could view flyers from the bulletin boards detailing the event, and focusing on the grand finale of the night, Act I of Les Miserables. Also a huge hit of the night were two musical pieces from the hit Broadway musical, Wicked.

The night kicked off with music from chamber choir. The chamber choir sang “Drei Volkslieder” by Felix Mendelssohn, “Choose Something like a Star” by Randall Thompson, and “Salmo 150” by Ernani.

Following Chamber Choir were two pieces from Wicked, performed by members of the musical theatre class. “I’m not that Girl” was sung by Katrina Romero, and “What is this Feeling?” sang by Andrea Rodriguez and Shyann Jobe.  Both songs featured music and lyrics by Stephan Schwartz.

“[The performance] was really cool because I got to play Elphaba, "The Wicked Witch of the West", and was painted up all green,” said Jobe, who even had to dye her hair black for the performance.

“What is this Feeling?” happened to be Jobe’s favorite performance. She enjoyed getting into character, and getting into the face of co-star Rodriguez, who was constantly battling for the spotlight against Jobe. “It was wicked cool,” said Jobe.

The night continued with performances by treble choir. The 18-person choir sang “Caro mio ben” by Giuseppe Giordani, “Sure on This Shining Night” by Samuel Barber, “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel” by Traditional Spiritual arr. Roger Emerson, and “Ich liebe dich” by Ludwig van Beethoven.

“Learning the words to the songs, and memorizing them [was difficult].” said Regan Lentzner, member of the treble choir. “But it was worth it!”

The men’s choir performed next, singing “The Vagabond” by Raulph Vaughan Williams. Following was a performance of “Viens Malika les lianes en fleurs/Sous le dome epais,” a flower duet from Lakme by Leo Delibes, sang by Romero and choir instructor Sasanna Efseaff.

The 31 members of concert choir were up next before a brief intermission. The concert choir started with “If Music be the Food of Love,” a piece by David C. Dickau. They followed with “Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord/Concerto No. 4” by Dmitry Bortniansky, featuring solos from Jennifer Spangler, Adrienne Rowel, and Erick Soto. They continued with “Abide in Me” by Dan Forrest, featuring violinist Michael Smith. They ended with “Dance a cachuca, fandango, balero,” which is the finale from The Gondoliers, by William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

After the intermission was the main attraction of the night, Les Miserables. The play was written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michael Schonberg. The script adaptation was written by Efseaff. Lyrics were by Herbert Kretzmer.

The play started off with “At the End of the Day,” sang by the Company, which included multiple choir and musical theatre students, and a couple of Grizzlies interested in supporting the play. The next number was “I Dreamed a Dream” sang by music theatre student, Tamara Orth, who portrayed Fantine. Soto followed with his edition of “Who Am I?” portraying the character of Valjean. “Castle on a Cloud” performed by Jenny Taylor, who played a young version of the character Cossette. “Do You Hear the People Sing?” followed, being performed by Steven Bounchareune as Enjorlas, Patrick Taylor, Patricia Valdez, and Alex Xiong, who each portrayed students, and the rest of the company. The play continued with “A Heart Full of Love” performed by Junior Alcazar as Marius, Margaret-Anne Martinez as Cossette, and Aurora Mendoza as Eponine. The play came to end with the performance of “One Day More” by Soto, Alcazar, Martinez, Bounchareune, Robert Manhurien as Javert, and the company.

Les Miserables was the hit of the night for the audience, as well as the performers.

"My favorite part was the second half. The Les Miserables part, because everyone seemed to have fun, and they sang really well also," said Jennifer Huddleston, a senior at Granite Hills who went to support a couple of her friends.

“I just like how everyone was supportive of everything and the overall satisfaction of making people happy” said Martinez, who was involved in chamber choir, concert choir, and musical theatre. Les Miserables was her favorite part of the concert, but she had a difficult time getting the moves down perfectly.

“I liked being involved with the musical to show what raw talent Granite students have, and also when the show is over I got the feeling like I had accomplished something not many people could do,” said J.Taylor.

Jobe described backstage as chaotic. “People needing to put make up on, take make up off, losing costumes! Rehearsals ran late; once I didn't get home until almost midnight. They were long, dragged on, and our teacher made us do everything over and over again until it was right and ran smoothly. Along with forgetting the choreography and some of my lines, everything was completely stressful!” Jobe said. “Once you're out there on stage, you forget the pressure that was going on off-stage, and everything just feels right, amazing. Ms. Efseaff said it was by far her favorite concert. I'm so happy we, as a class and a team, made her proud."