ALICIA & ED CLARK

The following is a post from longtime supporter and Life Trustee Alicia Garcia Clark.

Along with her husband Ed Clark, Alicia founded Hispanics for LA Opera and funded productions such as Florencia en el Amazonas, La Bohème, and Il Postino. Ed and Alicia Clark are so devoted to LA Opera that they have included the company in their estate plan.

"I have been in love with LA Opera since before its first season even began. I grew up in Veracruz, Mexico, hearing, loving, and learning about opera because my father loved opera. After I had graduated from the National University and was living and working in Mexico City, I finally had my own money and could buy tickets to see opera live for the first time.

“When I married my husband Ed and moved to New York, I was very happy for many reasons—but one of them was certainly the ability to hear all the great opera I wanted. But, in 1972, Ed decided to move to Los Angeles. I didn’t like the idea because there was no opera company here. In the first 12 years that we lived here, we either traveled to San Francisco Opera or we saw New York City Opera’s visiting summer performances—normally only two or three different operas a season.

“In 1984 we received an invitation to attend a meeting organized by a group of people who loved opera and were planning to create an opera company in Los Angeles. They needed many more opera lovers to help them. The speaker was Bernard A. Greenberg; and after we heard him talk about the funds they would need in order to achieve their goal, Ed and I decided to help as much as we could. We wanted so much to have opera in Los Angeles and thought it was necessary for Los Angeles to become a truly great city. At last, in September 1986, Los Angeles Opera opened its first season at the Music Center. Ed and I have been subscribers ever since, and we have loved watching LA Opera grow into one of the best and most important opera companies in the U.S."

—Alicia Garcia Clark