Imagine this: an evening in June. There is a light breeze and still enough light to see clearly the faces of strangers. Sunlight the color of Egyptian ocher shines like friendly fire from the cracks between buildings. Your hands are wrapped around the slim neck of a wine bottle; your body leans against the stone banister outside the National Gallery. All around you, Trafalgar Square is packed with happy people. Everyone faces the same direction, staring with concentration at the same thing: a giant screen projecting Bizet’s opera Carmen, which is being performed at this very moment at the Royal Opera House in nearby Covent Garden. The voices of the singers—full, smooth, and of the earth—intermingle with diegetic sounds of sirens and car horns and construction. It is an auditory battle between the mother city and the art it has fostered. You let the French arias wash over you and lose yourself in the exotic scenes flashing on the screen ahead. This is not London: this is Seville, and you are a gypsy falling in and out of love with an army officer.

From the heart of one city to the heart of another, you are transported. Opera has come to the masses. You cannot believe your luck.