Julia Burrus and John Pierson had heard good things about the Atherton Market in SouthEnd. So around lunchtime on Tuesday, they decided to check it out.

The experience turned out to be far more surprising than they ever imagined.

Right in the middle of their shopping, an opera broke out.

The singers, all members of Opera Carolina, had been posing as vendors at the market.

The lunchtime crowd was stunned.

The impromptu performance, the first of several “random acts of culture” planned for the Charlotte area, was sponsored by the Arts & Science Council, which was given a $30,000 grant for the project from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

ASC President Scott Provancher said local residents can expect dozens of surprises performances over the coming month.

The idea behind the program, he said, is to take traditional arts forms typically seen in concert halls and spring them on “unsuspecting folks” in public.

Burrus and Pierson certainly fit that discription.

“We were totally surprised,” Burrus said after watching Krista Wilhelmsen, an Opera Carolina singer posing as a vendor, emerge from a booth and began belting out "O mio babbino caro" from Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" in her beautiful soprano.

“This was our first time here,” Burrus said. “I though it was great. It livened my spirit.”

Provancher said the deeper purpose is to engage more people in the arts. Other performance, he said, may include the Charlotte Symphony or the North Carolina Dance Theatre.

At Atherton Market, even some of the vendors were caught off guard.

“The event was fantastic and quite surprising,” said John Allison of Chosen Nut Roasters. “I wouldn’t consider myself an opera fan but I can appreciate it.”

Ron Taylor, a tenor, said he joined Opera Carolina more than nine years ago, one of a growing group of African Americans who perform opera.

“I haven’t done anything like this before with an open market,” he said after his performance.

The indelible image of the day was of Wilhelmsen dropping to a knee to serenade Jonah Cameron, a Beverly Woods Elementary third-grader, at close range. Jonah couldn't stifle his nervous giggling but didn't break eye contact as the 31-year-old blonde's warm tones rang out and about 100 people looked on.

How did he feel about the whole thing? "Embarrassed."

His mother, Tara Cameron, was more effusive. "Charlotte needs more stuff like this to happen," said Cameron, who has season tickets to the opera. "I don't think a lot of people really realize that we have the opera here. Downtown is more than bars and restaurants."

See Observer video.
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Charlotte Observer pop culture writer Théoden Janes contributed.
 

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