- [Announcer] Support for this program was provided by the community foundation of Sarasota County, with generous funding from the Muriel O'Neil Fund.

- The whole experience of opera has a capacity to move my soul.

It does something to me that nothing else can do.

And for me, that's the great thing about opera.

(gentle music) I had a wonderful fifth grade teacher.

Her name was Annie Evelyn Ryan, she loved opera.

And I grew up just outside of New York City.

So she would introduce us to opera and took us to New York for a tour of the Metropolitan Opera, a backstage tour.

And it piqued my interest.

So I got my mother to take me to an opera, a New York City opera.

And I decided I wanted to make that my career.

My predecessors at Sarasota Opera had the great foresight to buy this building in 1979.

It was an old theater, a vaudeville and movie house.

And it had fallen into disuse.

And they purchased it, renovated for a number of years, and turned it into this beautiful opera house that we have now.

At the time we bought the building, Downtown Sarasota was frankly not a place you wanted to be.

It was pretty dilapidated, it was pretty run down.

And the reopening of the opera house, as well as some of the other theaters in Downtown Sarasota really sparked a revitalization of Downtown Sarasota.

(gentle music) - My Grandma June, she just was an incredible woman.

She had a tradition of taking all of the grandkids to New York City, or really, any city of their choosing, but New York is where I wanted to go.

(laughs) So we made it a point to see shows.

And after seeing the first show, just the people on stage, knowing how much fun they were having.

I was like, oh, I wanna do that.

If I could try and do that, that would just be the best life I could imagine.

(gentle music) Sarasota Opera is unique in that I think they really make a point to stick to the traditions of the story.

And they aren't worried about that not being enough for the audience.

Because the stories are so rich, and the characters are complicated.

And it's just a lot of deep-felt emotions.

(sings in foreign language) So when I have a new role, I go first into the words.

I translate everything first.

Usually we're working in Italian or French or German.

So making it understandable for me in my own language is the first step.

That way I can understand this person better.

Then I like to add the musical aspect.

I go to the piano, I play my notes for myself.

(sings a scale) The rehearsal process is one of my favorite parts of bringing a show to life.

Because it's such an intimate way of being with your colleagues.

There's a lot of trust involved.

We are all coming with our own level of preparation.

And we have to support each other.

(sings in foreign language) - All of you, a reminder , you got to find your sentences, right?

(sings) (gentle music) - COVID first became a factor for us while we were in our winter season in 2020.

It was something I never thought I would see, that we would have to shut our theater down because of the pandemic.

We'd have to put a lot of people out of work because of that.

We didn't realize when we shut down.

We thought, maybe this will be a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, but here we are a year later.

And most of the artists we work with haven't worked since.

It has been devastating to their income.

- For me, the newest thing about COVID, and performing has been dealing with a new level of anxiety.

(dramatic music) There's always a little bit of nerves, you know?

When you get to the theater and you're ready to go.

But now, with so many unknowns and so many things up in the air, that has amplified anxiety, I think, for me personally, but I know I'm not alone.

(dramatic music) The thing that gave me confidence about returning to work was knowing Sarasota Opera so well, knowing the people here.

Because I know that they have our best interests at heart, and that they really are prioritizing our safety.

So we are singing with masks on while we're staging.

And when it's time to focus on the music, we take our masks off.

But we are singing at a safe distance.

And everyone is in a bubble, so to speak.

So we're all safe with each other.

- Well, one of the reasons we're able to do what we are doing for our season, is that we own a 30 apartment complex.

That enables us to house all of our singers and our orchestra in one place.

It's just a short walk from the opera house.

So they don't have to take any transport.

So it really makes it easier for us to be able to control what's going on and to keep people safe.

The arts industry in Sarasota is the second largest employer in this area, in Sarasota County.

Not only are we talking about the people on stage.

We're talking about the people backstage.

We're talking about the people who work on costumes, wigs and makeups.

That's an important industry here in Sarasota, which is why it has been very important for us to continue doing what we're doing in whatever form we could during COVID.

(dramatic music) (gentle music) - [Interviewer] How do you feel like you'll feel when you step onto that stage for that first performance?

(gentle music) - I expect to be very overwhelmed.

I think gratitude is what I'll feel most.

It's just, to be able to do this again is so incredible.

And I'm so thankful.

There was, actually Pensacola Opera is doing a production of "Carmen".

And they just opened.

And there was a photo of the Carmen backstage as she heard the applause for the first time.

And just seeing that photo was like, oh my gosh, I can't wait, I can't wait.

- I think I'm going to feel extremely relieved when we get through the performance.

I mean, there are challenges, you know?

Who knows what's gonna happen from day to day.

So when we get to the curtain going up, and we have an audience and we have a performance, and we hear voices again in our theater, I am going to, maybe not literally, but within me, jump for joy and feel a great sense of relief and accomplishment in that we've been able to do this.

(gentle music)