I was talking to someone, and she hadn't ever seen an opera," recalls Stacy Eckert, who performs the title role in Opera Quad Cities' new production of Carmen. "And I was trying to explain Carmen, and I said, 'Well, I bet you know more tunes from the show than you think you do.' And she said, 'Aw, no, I don't know any of them.'
"So I started humming a few. She goes, 'Oh, I know that one! Oh, that was in The Bad News Bears, the original one! Oh, I know that one, too!' And I said, 'See? You know a ton of them!'"