Watching a stage play about the tragedies of war, while a nation is actually at war, makes for a most poignant theatrical experience.

Students enrolled in music programs and choirs at Vintage High School were well aware of the challenges of reliving a war of a different stripe in staging the hit Broadway show, “Miss Saigon.”

Following the lead of choral and stage director Mark Teeters, principals and an ensemble  — that at times appeared to include half the student population — took an opening night audience Thursday to Vietnam and back in a moving, polished pop opera spectacle worthy of your attention.

“Miss Saigon” is a tragic tale of a young couple in love, caught in a world at war. An epic that premiered in London and established records on Broadway, it is set in 1975, when conflicting cultures and ideologies met violently in Saigon.

It’s a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera, “Madame Butterfly,” and similarly tells the tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover. The setting is Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Puccini’s American lieutenant and Japanese geisha coupling is replaced by a romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl.

Following up on the success of “Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon” is also the handiwork of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.

An international sensation, “Miss Saigon” is an engaging pop opera that appeals to both emotions and senses as it deals with controversial, contemporary issues. Its pop-inflected score gave a multi-ethnic cast of students an opportunity to shine in showstopping numbers like “I Still Believe,” “Morning of the Dragon” and “The American Dream.”

The story begins to unfold just weeks before the American evacuation of Saigon in April of 1975. Chris, an American Marine (played by John Jamie Forsberg as a bashful serviceman who comes of age right before our eyes), falls for 17-year-old orphan Kim (Jessica Adlawan in a touching and thoroughly believable role, conveying both girlish innocence and stony resolve) who has just arrived in Saigon and escapes the life of a bar girl-for-hire by moving in with him.

After the couple shares a couple of love songs — the touching “Sun and Moon” and the captivatingly romantic “Last Night of the World” — the scene changes to Saigon three years later, now Ho Chi Minh City. Having been abandoned by Chris during the pell-mell American evacuation, Kim obsesses over his return to her and their young son (who he knows nothing about). Offering to help Kim, but only to feather his own nest, is the Engineer (played with demonic glee by Raoul Maximilian Stiehler), Kim’s former boss at the Dreamland bar. Chris ultimately does return to find Kim, but he brings his American wife, Ellen (beautifully played with empathetic tone by Devon Hadsell).

As the story line is advanced only in song, the production’s leads are called upon to deliver intelligible recitative as well the soaring ballads and character development pieces contained in the score. All deliver in spades.

Stunning visuals

On top of that, visually, this production is stunning. From the seedy Dreamland to the streets of the Red Light District in Bangkok (look for the tongue-in-cheek bar signs), colorful sets provide the backdrop. A particularly impressive scene is the third anniversary of the Reunification of Vietnam, during which a large contingent of flag- and weapon-toting Vietnamese in traditional peasant garb parade through Napa District Auditorium and across the stage to a decidedly militarist beat.

Another scene vividly brought to life is “The American Dream,” the Engineer’s mocking vision of all the wondrous things he’ll find when he reaches America. Staged in red, white and blue by choreographer Lisa Sullivan as a dreamlike Hollywood opening, the opportunistic pimp (Stiehler), attired in formal red sequined jacket, is surrounded by platinum-wigged Busby Berkeley chorines, a glittery, blue-clad singing-and-dancing chorus and oodles of formally attired first nighters. It’s a production number usually reserved for Broadway — a dazzler, a showstopper if ever there was one. And, in large measure, that’s due to the young exchange student cast in the role of the Engineer. More about him in a minute.

There’s another special effect called for in the Broadway staging. That was the landing of a helicopter which evacuated the last of the Americans out of the embassy compound in Saigon. While director Teeters and company can take credit for a triumphant staging of this spectacle, there was no way a chopper would land on the Napa auditorium stage. Instead, set designer Nick Curtis used the sound of chopper blades, intense overhead lights and a hastily dropped rope ladder to create the illusion. A throng of Vietnamese clamoring to get inside the embassy compound, pulling at the gates, begging to be included in the evacuation, also lent to the reality of this dramatic moment.

An outstanding cast

Teeters has cast a group of fine singers — particularly those in the female roles — as his leads. Not only does Jessica Adlawan touch our hearts as the young Vietnamese woman, she taps into our emotions on a number of duets. In addition to the songs she shares with her Marine lover, Adlawan and Devon Hadsell raise gooseflesh reflecting on their respective futures in a haunting “I Still Believe.” As the object of their affections, Forsberg grows up in a hurry, from questioning his wartime fate in “Why God Why? to discovering he fathered a son during his brief affair.

Tommy Orlando also grows in his role, from a back-slapping Marine to a caring young businessman attempting to reunite GIs with the children (“Bui Doi”) they fathered while in Vietnam. As if Kim didn’t have enough to worry about, her parents had promised her to a cousin, Thuy, and he shows up to claim his bride. Spurned by Kim, Kai Awa Hoffman, as Thuy, becomes a bitter, revenge-seeking commissar, wreaking havoc on not only his troops but those he professes to love. Forsberg, Hoffman and Orlando obviously reached deep down inside to carve out vital three-dimensional characters.

And who could not fall for Jonie Delfin, as bar girl Gigi, after she shares her dream of life in the United States (“The Movie in My Mind”) in the arms of a GI. The haunting song introduces us to this luckless young lady who looks beyond the reality of the moment. Despite a bit of feedback serious enough to unhinge the most professional singer, Delfin drew us into her dream, one shared with Adlawan, who wants a man who will not kill and will keep her safe. The song comes early in the show and is a defining moment.

But the greatest triumph belongs to Raoul Maximilian Stiehler as the Engineer. The confidence he exudes might make one think he came here direct from Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, his hometown’s center of erotica. Stiehler makes the role his own, pimping and preening with delight, embodying greed so shamelessly that it became impossible not to love him, and at the same time you also hate him. The roaring ovation for his final bow was well deserved.

It would take more space than allotted to name all the dozens who contributed to the success of Vintage High’s “Miss Saigon.”

We’d be remiss, however, not to single out adorable Christin Locke as Kim’s young son, Tam, as well as MiMi Nguyen, Natalie Inabinet an Alex Cero as Dreamland girls.

And kudos are due a firs-rate professional orchestra, led by choral director Mark Teeters, tasked with playing a complex score and accompanying this large talented cast.

Vintage High’s “Miss Saigon” is as entertaining as it is touching. “The American Dream” number alone is worth the price of admission. And I defy anyone to witness the finale without a catch in the throat.

To get your tickets for remaining performances, call 299-2520. Additional shows are scheduled tonight at 7, Sunday at 2 p.m., Tuesday at 6 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 for the Tuesday night show, $15 at all other performances. They take place in Napa District Auditorium, Lincoln and Jefferson streets, Napa.