If Lara has gotten to the stage where she doesn’t have time to see herself on the silver screen, it’s because she is too immersed in stage work.

Having elected a traditional liberal arts education over conservatory training, Lara arrived as a declared biochemistry major with plans for medical school.

“One assumed everyone at Harvard will be premed or prelaw,” she shrugs, “I thought I should be doing something ‘academic.’”

But after a trying first year—in which Lara struggled to balance four demanding “hard science” classes with her commitment to the University Choir and roles in several musicals—she decided it was time for a change.

“At the end of my freshman year I sat down with my proctor Noah S. Selsby to discuss, you know, my ‘premed aspirations.’ He said, ‘you can either spend your college experience being miserable and then go to med school where you’ll continue to be miserable, or you can spend your college time doing something you really love.’”

Lara opted out of misery. By the next semester, she enrolled herself in a special five year Masters program offered through the Music Department—in which a reduced course load (three half credits per semester) gave her more time to pursue private study and perform.

Lara has taken full advantage of the opportunities offered by the slightly relaxed schedule—although not to the exclusion of completing coursework and a thesis in Women’s Studies, with which she splits her joint concentration.

Lara has worked tirelessly in private training and in performance after performance in everything from operas to stage plays to commercial voice-overs, and garnered more lines on her resume than could be listed. They include major roles in “Candide,” “La Cenerentola,” “Into the Woods,” and “Pirates of Penzance;” solos at Forte! and Segue! (two concerts hosted by University President Laurence H. Summers in appreciation of excellence in the arts) and with the Harlem Boys’ Choir in Sanders Theater; singing with the Vox jazz quintet, the Harvard Choir and the Chorale Fellows of Memorial Church; and serving as an Undergraduate Representative to the Music Department.

Having already begun to expand to performances outside Harvard in venues ranging from weddings and religious services to jazz clubs, Lara is prepared to hit Boston or New York running.

“Whatever happens, I want to be able to say: I went for it. I tried.”

On May 8 at 2 p.m., Lara will be giving a farewell recital in Payne Hall—entitled “Blond(e?)” for her “signature” mane. She looks forward to reuniting for several numbers with some of the “mindbogglingly talented people” with whom she’s had the privilege of working here.

“I wanted to pay tribute,” she explains. “I didn’t want it to be just one big diva show.”

Lara’s entire extended family will also be in town to receive the tribute.

“My incredibly musical, incredible, incredible family,” she sighs. “They’re the ones who have always been pushing me to achieve the best that I can. They’ve been the cornerstone of everything I’ve done here.”

—Moira G. Weigel