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1. This photo of Jennifer Rivera and Greg Schmidt, who star in "The Barber Of Seville" at TBPAC this season.

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2. You love music.

If you love music, then you'll love opera, Milnes said. He ought to know: He's been heralded as one of the greatest baritones in the world, and has performed at the Met in New York City with frequency. "All music is primarily emotional and secondarily intellectual," Milnes said. "You don't have to have gone to music school to have music reach into your heart." If you decide to check out opera music before actually attending an opera, he advised the newcomer to be selective: "Wagner, for instance, wouldn't be a good first choice."

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3. It's counterintuitive in today's culture.

Let's face it: Our culture doesn't put a big value on having good taste in the performing arts, or anything else. For every person renting a Frederico Fellini or Ingmar Bergman film for the first time, there are hundreds of thousands watching "Survivor." Wouldn't it make you a more interesting person to at least expose yourself to a classic work that has survived centuries? Of course it would. And enjoying opera and dance won't turn you into a dweeb, no more than it does the performers. "Just because you are a ballet dancer, for example, it doesn't mean that you don't go to the nightclubs," Zouves said.

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4. But it ain't rocket science, either.

It's classified as oh-so high culture now, but opera was as mainstream as a Jackie Chan flick back in the day. "People would go to the opera every night of the week," said Opera Tampa apprentice Alexandra Wiseman. "They'd buy dinner and spread it out on the floor of the balcony." (Although Friday Extra and Opera Tampa encourage you to enjoy opera, you're also encouraged to leave the picnics at home.)

Broadway musicals and films such as "Rent," "Moulin Rouge" and "The Phantom of the Opera" are based on works by Puccini, Verdi and Mozart, respectively, and you don't have any trouble following them, do you?

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5. You already know the music.

You watched "The Little Rascals" and "Loony Tunes," didn't you? "The Barber of Seville" can't be completely foreign to you, then. Opera pops up in films such as "Wall Street," "Apocalypse Now," "Pretty Woman" ("It was so good I almost peed my pants!" exclaims the heroine) and the new James Bond flick, "Quantum of Solace." The Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, has performed "Nessum Dorma," from Puccini's "Turandot." Luciano Pavarotti collaborated with U2 on the song "Miss Sarajevo."

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6. You can bring your kids.

As noted above, even the very young ones were mesmerized by the performances in the Opera 101 show. But opera seems best for teenagers, Rafalo said. She got into opera in high school, which she thinks is a good time because teenagers are "so dramatic." "The more I listened to it," she said, "the more I loved it."

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7. It's a bargain.

You can buy a season ticket for the opera for $130.90, which means you are paying about $32 a show. That's cheaper than most big production events, and a whole lot cheaper than a Buccaneers game.

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8. You don't have to dress up, be old or know Italian.

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9. It deserves another chance.

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10. You should support art for art's sake.

A city can only become great if it offers its residents a variety of cultural attractions, both "high" and "low." The Tampa area has beautiful parks, world-famous tourist attractions, great beaches, professional sports teams, a growing university and an improving local arts and music scene. We also have good performing arts venues, but we'll get even better shows at them if we attend the current shows in great numbers. Zouves grew up in Tampa, and said she had to move to New York to have any chance of working in opera, since at the time not much was happening in Tampa. "It's really exciting to see how far we have come, but we still have a long way to go."

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