After winning a highly competitive international opera competition, a Mid-Prairie alumna reflects on her success thus far in her opera career. Opera singer Jessica Faselt found her talent in singing when she was 16-years-old and attending Mid-Prairie High School. While studying Vocal Performance at the University of Iowa, she attempted for five years to get accepted into the Metropolitan Opera (The Met), a New York based opera house featuring some of the world’s best opera singers since 1883. After winning the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she was officially signed to be part of The Met. In February, Faselt competed in the George London Foundation Competition and was selected as one of five finalists to win a $10,000 award. She tells KCII News what it was like to win this prestigious award, “I felt great. I had been working on this Italian opera and studying it with my coaches at the Met and training for quite a while leading up to this competition. This competition was the first time I presented it publicly. So for me it was like a huge hurdle because I had been working on this difficult aria and it just felt like it really came together and then I ended up winning and so it was really exciting.” While many of her upcoming performances have been cancelled due to COVID-19, she hopes individuals will be excited to return to the opera houses once they open up their doors once again.