Our Community is Our Stage

How lucky we are to live in a community that cares about the arts and recognizes its role in keeping them alive and thriving! Tim Pearson & Brian Chen, two shining examples of that spirit, have very generously donated $5000 to help 'raise the curtain' on our Alaska premiere of Frida by Robert Xavier Rodríguez, and to help fund our community projects surrounding the production! Now they want to inspire others to follow their lead and play a role in bringing great opera to our great city. They share our vision to Enrich. Inspire. Educate. Collaborate. Build Community...one note at a time! Won't you join them? Bravo & THANK YOU!

Sung in Spanish and English, Frida is the story of famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. “Our repertoire choices are always made with our community interests and needs in mind,” said Reed Smith, General Director. “In addition to the significant Latinx community in Anchorage, Frida affords us the new opportunity to work closely and integrate with our strong visual and fine arts community on ancillary projects beneficial to our community, while also reaching many other segments as well. Frida Kahlo’s status as an icon of our LGBTQ community, and her triumph, despite disability, provides connections to the disabled and organizations that serve them. As she was a polio survivor, producing the opera interests the 15 area Rotary International Clubs in the area.” In the weeks before the Alaska premiere of the opera, AO is taking the cast and artistic team onsite to organizations engaged through the project for a program of excerpts and discussions about the production, including Anchorage School District classrooms. “One in five students comes from a household where English is not a first language and 23% of those report Spanish as their first language.” Smith said. “Opportunities to experience the arts, especially opera, are limited for ASD students. Our hope is to reach many underserved segments of our community while simultaneously demonstrating the diversity of artists and our art form in current times, thereby making it relatable to them.”