Lake View Terrace

For two months, about 40 students at Phoenix Academy, a residential school and drug rehabilitation center, have built sets, designed costumes and rehearsed scenes and choral numbers for a performance of “Journey to Cordoba” planned for today at Fenton Avenue Elementary School in Lake View Terrace.

The performance is part of the “Music Center on Tour” program, in which Los Angeles Music Center Opera professionals teach students the fundamentals of singing, acting, dancing, percussion, set creation and costume design. Phoenix Academy is one of three high schools in the Valley involved in the L.A. Opera program.

“It’s a learning experience and it builds self-esteem,” said Gail Guglielmino, director of development at Phoenix Academy, which houses 100 adolescents recovering from drug abuse.

“The students do just about everything,” Guglielmino said, “from the artwork to the staging to appearing in supporting roles and in the chorus.”

The opera, written by Lee Holdridge and Richard Sparks, tells the story of a teenage girl sent by her father in the United States back to Mexico to learn about respect. Her father had disapproved of the daughter’s boyfriend.

The daughter takes a train to Mexico and meets a mythical woman who shows her a new way of looking at the world and herself, said Tom Stang, an art instructor at Phoenix Academy.

“She comes back not submissive, but liberated, and is inclined to be of service to her community,” Stang said.

The opera will be performed before an audience of Phoenix Academy board members and staff, students and community members, Guglielmino said.