In the Roman amphitheater of Verona, Italy, the elephants and horses in ancient Egyptian regalia marched onto stage to the thunderous chords of Guiseppe Verdi¡¯s opera ¡°Aida.¡± The singers filled the balmy night with their voices, soaring over the trumpets and crashing cymbals of the orchestra ¡ª and for one girl watching the spectacle it seemed like ¡°a world of dreams.¡±

The other students in the junior high-school music class in snowy Asahikawa, deep in Hokkaido, giggled at the funny men and women making a ruckus in the Blu-ray video playing on the classroom television. But 14-year-old Kano Ozawa found herself spellbound by the costumes and the pageantry and the enormous performers whose naked voices could fill an arena packed with thousands of spectators.

¡°It shook me to the core,¡± she recalls of her first encounter with opera. ¡°I couldn¡¯t make head or tail of it, but I thought, ¡®This is what I want to do.¡¯¡±