On a Thursday evening late last month, 115 people arrived at the Sheraton in downtown Raleigh for dinner and a speech. They weren't there for an annual meeting or political fundraiser. The attendees had come to learn about opera.

The program, the first of six in a series called "A Taste of Opera," was organized by the Opera Company of North Carolina's general manager, Frank Grebowski, as part of his plans to demystify opera. With three full productions and a concert of highlights on this season's schedule, Grebowski hopes these talks will turn attendees into ticket buyers.

Among those paying $25 a plate at "Understanding Italian Opera" was a man employed by an Italian company who had heard a lot about opera at work but had little exposure. A married couple had seen OCNC's "Carmen" in 2001 and Luciano Pavarotti's Raleigh concert a year later, but had ventured nothing else. Two women friends, who often go to opera and musical theater together, figured the talk would help them learn more.

Tenor John Fowler, star of OCNC's recent "La Bohème," was tapped for the first talk. His humorous anecdotes about working at the Met, jokes about opera stereotypes, and impromptu snatches of singing helped humanize opera even more than the tidbits of opera categories and voice types he dispensed.

The second dinner and talk held two weeks later brought in 170 people. Having Grant Llewellyn, the N.C. Symphony's charismatic music director, as speaker certainly helped fill the room (his name drew oohs and ahs when announced at the first talk). Still, that many paying guests for an evening billed as "The Story of Figaro" is unusual, given that most opera companies offer free preperformance talks at their productions.

This is music to Grebowski's ears, as his company prepares for its first production of the season, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," playing three consecutive nights beginning Thursday. This first-time collaboration with the N.C. Symphony will be semistaged in Meymandi Concert Hall, with Llewellyn conducting his first opera locally and an experienced cast boasting credits from Chicago Lyric and New York City Opera.

"It was a brilliant stroke for Frank to envision how to make this work for both organizations," says David Chambless Worters, the symphony's president and CEO. "I'm extremely enthusiastic about the project."

Start on a high note

The opera company closed the 2006-07 season on a high note with April's production of "La Bohème." The audience of 4,000 was the largest in the company's 11-year history.

Puccini's popular tearjerker usually guarantees a sizable crowd, but Grebowski also attributes the high numbers to the "Opera About Town" events that preceded the production. These free programs included open rehearsals, preview performances in libraries and malls, and highlights sung on Fayetteville Street, where the company moved its offices in December.

For the past two weeks, the company has offered a similar round of events for "The Marriage of Figaro." The final event takes place at 1 p.m. today in Moore Square, where members of the opera company and the N.C. Symphony perform as part of the SparkCon festival of arts and ideas.

Grebowski first applied his outreach ideas to promoting "Barber of Seville" in June 2006. Originally he was hired on a three-week contract to bolster sales for the production, but public response to his opening up of rehearsals and his series of highlights programs in the Cameron Village Library led the company's board to offer him the job of general manager.

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