In the late 1980s, when Perry Lorenzo, then an English teacher at Kennedy High School in Burien, first noticed how easy it was to get teenagers hooked on the wild stories and explosive passions of opera, a Northwest institution was born. Since then, tens of thousands of middle- and high-school students have studied and attended final rehearsals of each Seattle Opera production, returning to classrooms as diverse as English, history, foreign language, arts, or even math and science to respond to and process their experience. Students also tour McCaw Hall or visit Seattle Opera’s offices, Costume Shop, and/or Scenic Studios, and company staff and teaching artists visit schools across the state to give master classes and workshops and support curriculum.