[Music] my name is Lauren Frick and I am an opera singer as well as being the Director of Education and social entrepreneurship here at Florida Grand Opera I pretty much Encompass all of the programming that that hits people from babies all the way up um outside of the theater um and even inside of it um getting them involved with why is Opera important to them how can we cultivate new audiences how can we um excite them about what they're going to see make it relevant to their lives um and make it something that they are excited to be a part [Music] of if I can get a kid there one time I can usually hook them in to be like this is cool this is kind of interesting this is I want to learn more about it we have our middle school and high school programs our biggest progr progr is called hope which is having an opera performance experience and that's when we bring students from Miami day County and have them watch the final dress rehearsal of our production hello and welcome we're so excited to have you all here with us tonight this is always a highlight of our season to have all these students come together to take part in the Opera 80% of our students that are coming are coming for the first time so it's it's a new experience all around for many of them so we sort of break it down a little bit what to expect when you go and um and what is the the show about who are these characters and and I found that when you kind of give them that knowledge ahead of time they they're almost like rooting for or against some of the characters and they really get into um into the story line it was very exciting and very eventful how flute did all of the it it tracked out the princess it also helped the bread the bread catcher but the thing that was most surprising is how the queen was the bad guy but not the actual demon that they thought it was the demon was just trying to help but the queen was actually the villain of the story I would most definitely see another Opera you understand her okay my bad I'm sorry I loved how they were singing I love the colors as well the background really like caught my attention as well I really liked it it was beautiful it was very awesome and like you know the feeling was great just experiencing it and watching it like I felt refreshed I loved [Music] it what I do as an artist really feeds what I do as an administrator and what I do as an administr sh has fed so much of my artistic journey in the last 5 years because it's just the information that I've gained through that role has has made me not only appreciate but just just have this sense of like I understand what the other people around me are doing and why they're doing it and how how much of a a a cost in terms of uh financial and energy and people and resources that it takes to make that happen I know that person you know has worked you know 17 hours to make to make sure the lights were focused correctly I know this person went to this party and this party and this party to make sure that all these people came to the Opera and that they're hopefully going to be donors to the Opera so it's really great to just be able to bring that knowledge to the table I think it's so important in 2025 for people to um to understand and to know why Opera is important in their life how did I get into Opera I I don't know the exact moment it happened it just was this little rock that you know started rolling down the hill and then all of a sudden it became this big thing and now it's where it's at I found an amazing um older woman her name was Mrs weeks and she really oh my God she's no longer with us but she really kind of embraced me in a way that I she met me where I was and she never pushed me to like do more than I was ready for and the more I started to do it the more I was like okay I like this there's something cool there there's something different there's these languages that I didn't have any exposure to before there's these these Melodies and and really diving into the operas you start to realize just like how complex and how much drama and how much story and character there was this is don't say a word from dead man walking it was a movie a book so it's a it's um a true based on a true story um of this nun who meets a prisoner on death row and kind of goes through that story with with him all the way to the end um and this song is the mother of that person on death row [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now look I'm still smile [Music] I was at the New World School of the Arts teaching there as a voice adjunct um for about 5 years and um then we had covid so we were teaching online so it was a little bit more flexible and so I had more time and I said you know I want to be around Opera I want to experience everything that goes into it and so let's go to the Opera and see what's going on there and they had an opening in the box office it had nothing to do with being on stage in that moment but it really taught me so much about like the people that are coming to the Opera that why they're coming to the Opera um what's important to them in in that decision that they make to pay for a ticket this team right now we're we're in such a uh this sort of Phoenix Rising stage as our fearless leader Maria todoro says she that we're an 83-year-old star start up right now because we're this history we're this company that has so much history I mean Pavarotti made his his us debut with us we're the oldest performing arts company in Florida one of the oldest in the country and yet we're in this place where we're sort of Shifting things and making things better so that we can continue to have another 83 years and Beyond [Applause]