TIJUANA – What happens when opera singers leave the stage and stroll through streets, bus stations or movie theaters and begin singing unexpectedly?

The quest for an answer is the engine that drives a group of artists and cultural promoters called "Traveling Opera," who have performed 90 concerts, nearly all of them in public places, since May.

"We never know how people will react, if they are going to boo us, applaud us or simply be indifferent and leave," said Ezequiel Ojeda. "That's the adventure of this project."

Ojeda, 27 years old, is a tenor and artistic director of "Traveling Opera." He studied at the Music Conservatory of the Baja California Orchestra and is a member of the Opera Company of Tijuana.

"All of the participants of this project are beginning in music. Our intention is to tell the public, any type of public, that opera doesn't bite you nor is it only for rich people, its art for everyone," he added.

In addition to Ojeda, there are the tenors Jorge Chenoa and Javier Carrillo and the sopranos Judith Chirino and Zully Martínez.

This opera show gives a jolt of feeling and emotion to ordinary days in which crowds of busy people move indifferently toward other people and no one expects anything from anyone.

Be it from a bus station, Tijuana's airport, city hall or a busy plaza, the singers appear as if they were employees. Instead of working, though, they sing for seven minutes Neapolitan arias or a repertoire of Mexican music, including "Muñequita mía," "Júrame" o "Cielito Lindo."

People's reactions are interesting. For example, in the main exhibition hall of the high-tech conference Tijuana Innovadora, held in October, the sounds of the hundreds of people who had gathered there hushed until it could no longer audible once they heard the opera songs.

At a presentation at a movie theater in July, the people's initial reaction was one of confusion, a metaphoric shrugging of their shoulders and asking, "What's this?" But then they stopped moving into the screening room when they heard the popcorn server perform in a hair-raising opera piece.

During their performance at the central bus station in May, many people stopped in their tracks and applauded spontaneously – in the middle of Italian arias sung by the tenors and sopranos.

"At first, many people left while others didn't bother to even turn their heads to see us. When we finished our performances we asked them to explain their reactions and they told us that they thought we were going to ask them for money," said Liliana Ríos, deputy director of cultural promotion at the Centro Cultural Tijuana.

She created this project after a trip to Italy, where this type of show is common.

In December of 2009, Ríos had seen a Christmas show put on by the Tijuana Opera Company; a little later she contacted some of the singers and explained to them this project, which would be sponsored by the cultural center.

"If people didn't go to the opera, then we would take the opera to the people, always with intention of promoting musical and artistic work that's created in this city. It's like telling them, 'this is done here,' if you want more, they can go to the cultural center," said Ríos.

The first concert of "Traveling Opera" was May 28, 2010 at the city's central bus station, on the east side, and there have been 89 more.

Its creator said there's no deadline to finish this project. The Traveling Opera singers continue to expand their repertoire and now they are being invited to cultural festivals of northeast Mexico.