From left – Katelyn Geary, Nina Evelyn, Timothy Steele (piano), on the floor is Cerise Jacobs and Kayla Faccilongo, Linda Maritza Collazo and Jesús Daniel Hérnandez. Miu Tung Rong photo
Daniela Martinez, a graduating senior at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, joined 826 Boston in the fall of 2023, thinking she’d be writing plays, not the libretto for a new opera. But for six months last year, Martinez worked alongside other students at the writing nonprofit brainstorming, scene writing, and creating the text for the opera “To the People Like Us.”
A year later, on June 28, the opera is set to premiere at the Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner.
“To the People Like Us” follows three teens living in an unnamed city neighborhood. Costanza and Malakai, who are native to the area, confront the possibility of displacement when Indigo, whose mother is the developer responsible for the pressure, moves onto the scene.
The opera was created by a dozen students from 826 Boston’s Youth Literary Advisory Board — a program that offers students stipends for their work as writers and editors — in collaboration with White Snake Projects, an activist opera company.
Above: Nina Evelyn. Miu Tung Rong photo
“White Snake came to us with the idea of students writing the libretto,” said Asiyah Herrera, a teaching artist for the Youth Literary Advisory Board. “I was cautious and hesitant because I’ve never written a libretto before.”
Herrera said there was a steep learning curve for everyone involved, herself included. The writing they had worked on together previously was done on a much smaller scale, she said.
She split the students into three groups, assigning each team specific scenes in the story to work on. Two individuals from White Snake Projects came to the sessions to guide the students through the writing process.
“It was mainly just us and the writers at White Snake,” Martinez said, “making sure the plot points would be something that White Snake would want to represent, or the characters would be something that they would want on the stage and be okay with.”
Mezzo-soprano Kayla Faccilongo. Miu Tung Rong photo
Each season, White Snake Projects assigns a social justice issue as the focal theme of their shows. The organization chose climate change for 2025.
While students centered the opera on climate change, they used the opportunity to adapt the story into a real-life issue they’ve seen firsthand: gentrification.
“They wanted a story that was about themselves and their own experience, like all of the places they’re talking about are real places in Boston,” said Pascale Florestal, the opera’s director.
“The 826 Boston location is in Jamaica Plain, and Jamaica Plain is currently being gentrified,” Martinez said. “A lot of us — including myself [because] I live in East Boston, which is also being gentrified — had experience with it, so that came from ourselves.”
Jorge Sosa, who composed the music for the opera, said it was important for him not only to stay true to the students’ vision but also to use art as a tool to explore related social issues.
“I think that music is speech. Art is speech, and we can use it to say whatever we need to say,” Sosa said. “For me, I use my right to free speech to talk about the issues that are important to me.”
Even though Sosa has never met the students in person, he said he shares their vision and concerns, and though the music may not change the world, he thinks that it still has the potential to create an impact.
He said the music needed to reflect the characters and the world in which they lived. He jokingly describes the opera as an “electronic zarzuela,” a Spanish operetta style that alternates between spoken and musical scenes. He also included references to salsa and bolero in the show.
Florestal acknowledged that opera has a reputation as a higher-class, elitist activity. She said it will be interesting to see how typical opera-goers react to the performance.
“My job is to show people in opera who may not think about what it means to tear down this building and build a skyscraper, to the families who live in that building or the families who rely on that corner store for groceries,” she said. “Those people, oftentimes, who are affected by these larger implications of the system that we live in don’t get an opportunity to have their voices heard.”
Martinez said she wants this opera to motivate people “to open their ears and listen to each other and have actual conversations, instead of just yelling back and forth at each other and sticking by their stubborn ideals.”
“To the People Like Us” will have two performances on June 28, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ticket prices are “pay what you can.” RSVP information is available on the White Snake Projects website.
