Do you enjoy musicals? Are you a fan of mystery and extravagance? Regardless of whether you are drawn to musical theatre or not, The Phantom of the Opera on stage is well worth the ticket. With an iconic soundtrack, intriguing characters, and skilled actors and actresses, the play will entice all audiences, regardless of their interest in classic musicals.
Recently, a group of French students at Hanover High School took a field trip to see Phantom performed live at the Boston Opera House. The play is based on a 1910 French novel by the same name written by Gaston Leroux. The story has inspired many movies and play productions because of its dramatic and original plot. In the story, a female performer at the Paris Opera House catches the attention of a masked composer who hides below the Opera to conceal his disfigured face. Christine, the singer who attracts the concealed “Phantom,” must choose between an admirer from her childhood and the mysterious, often unpredictable composer. Though the play contains elements of tragedy, the convincing performances by the actors, the beautiful stage sets, and the dramatic music make the experience of seeing the play exciting and suspenseful.
Before watching the play, French teachers Mrs. Dhommee and Mrs. Youngworth took their students to Brasserie JO, a Boston restaurant that serves French cuisine. Students ate from a delicious selection of foods, including French onion soup, a variety of sandwiches, and a plate of French desserts such as crème brûlée. Some even tried escargot—and liked it, for the most part!
Overall, the day served as an enriching learning experience, exposing students to aspects of French culture from baguettes before lunch to French literature performed on stage. It is uncommon for students to leave high school for the day to travel into Boston and experience so much culture firsthand, and it will be an unforgettable experience for all who attended. I highly suggest seeing The Phantom of the Opera when it comes back to Boston again, or wherever it finds you in the future!
Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez: Inspired by a true event, the 1937 explosion of an East Texas school that killed 300 people, this novel follows the experiences of a Mexican-American girl and an African-American boy whose growing love crosses racial barriers and risks another kind of eruption. Extremely well-written, riveting and heartbreaking.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys: No, this is not a sequel, prequel or related in any way to the Fifty Shades of Grey series. This novel is about the killings, imprisonments and deportations of thousands committed during Josef Stalin’s “reign of terror.” When Stalin’s Soviet Union invaded the Baltic nation of Lithuania in 1939, he ordered attacks on doctors, lawyers, professors, political activists and pretty much anyone he thought could pose a threat to his rule. Lina’s family was among them, enduring hard labor, starvation and unimaginable abuse in Siberian prison camps.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman: Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of the Hmong. I’d mistakenly grouped them with the Vietnamese refugees who came here after the fall of Saigon. They’re a different culture, from an entirely different Southeast Asian country. But the lessons learned from this book — that doctors must be culturally sensitive, that medicine is not always stronger than spiritual beliefs — could apply to any interaction between different ethnic groups. The book follows a young girl with epilepsy and how stereotypes and misunderstandings nearly cost her life.
made, there always seem to be another story to tell. To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino recounts the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Most of us know the basic details, which are often wrapped up in whether the US was right to unleash the nuclear age in an effort to end the war. This book doesn’t get bogged down in that debate. Instead it paints – in vivid scientific, physical and emotional detail – the impact on the cities and people devastated by them, that day and in the months and years since. The stories of Japanese survivors are heartbreaking, especially those who fled after the first bombing and sought safety in the city that became the second target. Can you imagine living through one bomb – a bomb that incinerated your family on the spot, flattened entire neighborhoods and left thousands with horrific burns and radiation poisoning – only to endure it again a few days later? For many people, survival was a matter of inches: a person shielded by a wall or tree may have survived while someone standing steps away was vaporized. The author follows a handful of survivors, much as John Hersey did in his 1946 book Hiroshima, as well as other notable participants such as the pilots who dropped the bombs. While Hiroshima is a powerful book, To Hell and Back goes farther and digs deeper. The 2015 edition uses modern language, making it feel less dated than Hersey’s book, but it also has the benefit of following up with eyewitnesses who lived into the ’90s and 2000s. It was powerful to read how the bombings continued to haunt the survivors, many fighting until old age for a ban on nuclear weapons and an end to war.
The Hawk 