{"id":267948,"date":"2026-05-12T12:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267948\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:59:08","slug":"former-pro-athletes-take-the-stage-in-opera-all-stars-concert-at-arsht-center-wsvn-7news-miami-news-weather-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267948\/","title":{"rendered":"Former pro athletes take the stage in \u2018Opera &#038; All-Stars\u2019 concert at Arsht Center &#8211; WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI (WSVN) &#8211; From packed stadiums to center stage, some former athletes have traded highlight reels for high notes. <\/p>\n<p>They were once athletes who performed on the field, and now off the field, they\u2019re on a different stage. <\/p>\n<p>Former New York Yankees legend Bernie Williams is a four-time World Series champ and a five-time All-Star who\u2019s played the guitar since he was a kid.<\/p>\n<p>Since retiring from the Yankees 20 years ago, he\u2019s continued his love for music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerforming, you know, the lights, the pressure, and just one time to make it right, I think that kind of translates from baseball, no doubt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, a Latin Grammy nominee, is an accomplished musician who\u2019s performed at Carnegie Hall and worked with several big-name artists, including Bruce Springsteen.<\/p>\n<p>He recently led the <a href=\"https:\/\/fgo.org\/season25-26\/opera-and-all-stars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">\u201cOpera &amp; All-Stars\u201d performance<\/a> at the Adrienne Arsht Center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlaying with musicians of this caliber, I mean, this is just an amazing experience, so it really makes me more motivated to play as much as I can and be as proficient as I can in the instruments, so I can relate all these ideas to them, and they\u2019re just kind of hitting them out of the park,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n<p>Among the performers on stage, former Hurricanes and Dolphins player Bryant McKinney, the one-time Super Bowl champ, has been singing since he was in his high school choir and enjoys performing for a different type of audience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope they get a great experience and are very entertained and also can see that from the football aspect that guys are more than just football players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Among the pro players group performing with opera singers was former Miami Northwestern high star and NFL veteran Ulrich Johnson. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s something that it makes you feel, you can tell what the story is because of the excellence in it and the way it\u2019s played, and that\u2019s a lot with opera, too, like there may not be people who may come, you may not know the words, you know, you might not speak the language, but you will be able to feel the music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>This performance, billed as the \u201cVoices of Wellness,\u201d benefited veterans and first responders and was also geared toward exposing this type of music to a new audience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a reputation in the world of opera that we are a little stiff, that we\u2019re not cool enough, so we needed to pep it up a little bit,\u201d said Maria Todaro with the Florida Grand Opera. <\/p>\n<p>This is the first time the Florida Grand Opera has brought together opera, jazz and the NFL Pro Players Choir. <\/p>\n<p>The Opera will begin its 85th season in South Florida in November and have a long-term plan to continue to bring former professional athletes on stage to perform.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p>\tJoin our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (WSVN) &#8211; From packed stadiums to center stage, some former athletes have traded highlight reels for high&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-267948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}