Think opera is snooty, intimidating or just not for you? Julia Cooke wants to dispel such notions.

“There are two things that you need to understand opera,” she said. “Human nature doesn’t change over generations, and relationships are hard.”

While some elements of the genre date back to its inception more than 400 years ago, Cooke, the president and general director of Opera Baltimore, is squarely focused on the future. That includes how her organization can leverage artificial intelligence to improve operations ahead of its 2025-26 season this fall.

Cooke can already hear the gasps and pearl-clutching, but she’s eager to reassure skeptics: Opera Baltimore, which formed in 2009 as Baltimore Concert Opera and rebranded in 2022, is focused on AI’s administrative benefits, not how to manipulate any singing.

“I just want great art,” Cooke said in an interview inside Mount Vernon’s Engineers Club, where Opera Baltimore’s offices are located. “But from an administrative and operational standpoint, it is a game-changer for us.”

The city-based organization was one of 16 groups nationwide selected by the DeVos Institute of Arts and Nonprofit Management to join A³ (Arts x Admin x AI), a seven-month research program designed to better understand how AI can help arts nonprofits.

Two months into the fellowship, Cooke and her staff of four employees — three of whom are part-time — largely use ChatGPT to help with behind-the-scenes tasks such as preparing grant applications and writing emails more efficiently. The goal of the program is not just to find new shortcuts but also consider how to ethically implement AI within arts groups.

Still, she understands that not everyone will embrace the idea.

“I would never tell any artist how they should or shouldn’t use it. I don’t have any preference if they do or don’t,” Cooke said.

Supporters would say it’s another example of Cooke’s savvy leadership in her pursuit of growing the nonprofit’s audiences. While Opera Baltimore’s forthcoming season kicks off with a fully staged production of Giacomo Puccini’s 1900 drama “Tosca” at Towson University’s Stephens Hall Theatre on Oct. 10 and Oct. 12, the group also regularly meets audiences in more casual settings.

Take, for example, Thirsty Thursdays at the Opera, where attendees sample both drinks and music in a brisk presentation at the picturesque Engineers Club. After 10 minutes of singing, guests try a wine paired with the performance. The process repeats four times, giving attendees a taste of, say, Côtes du Rhône red alongside a soaring soprano without feeling glued to a chair.

“It’s meant to be for people who are maybe a little bit opera-shy or a little bit opera-curious or they’re not really sure where they fit in,” Cooke said. The next Thirsty Thursday is Sept. 25.

Next month is Fall for Opera, a free, family-friendly series in which singers perform at popular outdoor spots like the Patterson Park Observatory. Opera Baltimore also runs an education program that engages young students by turning children’s stories into mini-operas.

Mary Duncan Steidl, managing artistic director of Peabody Opera, said she’s been impressed by Opera Baltimore’s efforts to make the art form more accessible.

“They’ve managed to put opera with these fun events and to bring in a community that might not otherwise get to hear them. … So even someone who’s never been around opera, who just happens to be walking past, will come and sit and listen,” Duncan Steidl said.

Cooke saw how the storied Baltimore Opera Company’s 2009 bankruptcy left a cultural void and is determined to make Opera Baltimore work for the long run.

Since she took over in 2020, Cooke said, the organization’s events routinely sell out, revenue has grown by more than 200% and the number of annual programs ballooned from 10 to 103. Its budget has multiplied as well to just under $900,000 for the coming fiscal year, she said.

Ingenuity has played a role in the post-pandemic success, as the group saves money by producing larger-scale performances in collaboration with OperaDelaware, which is run by Cooke’s husband, Brendan Cooke.

“We share everything, from all the artists to the orchestra to the sets and costumes, and it travels from Delaware to Baltimore,” she said. “It allows us to do this at a much lower cost to both institutions.”

The new season, titled “Power, Passion and the Price of Truth,” invites speculation. Is it a commentary on today’s political climate? Cooke smiles, refusing to take the bait.

“People can read or not read whatever they want into that tagline. I will say I picked the pieces first, and it just happened that the throughline — that was what made the most sense,” she said.

Art is layered and open to interpretation, she said. It should also challenge us. These tenets make Cooke grateful she gets to lead this organization in Baltimore, a city filled with art enthusiasts and its own rich history of opera. The group honors this, too, with Opera on the Avenue, a series of events dedicated to local musicians like West Baltimore native Anne Wiggins Brown, the first Bess in “Porgy and Bess.”

Regardless of whatever technological advancements come next, Cooke said, Opera Baltimore is motivated by a timeless idea: Art can transform.

“Our dedication to that [concept] and our ability to do that in a town such as this — which I find to be very open to new things, to new experiences — it allows us to try things. It allows us to play,” she said. “It allows us to show up with beauty for Baltimore.”