If you’ve been in the vicinity of the Olympic Training Center in downtown Colorado Springs lately, specifically on its eastern border along Union Boulevard in the Knob

Hill neighborhood, you’ve heard the music. It’s hard to miss it. Make that impossible.

Opera music. Morning, noon, and into the night.

From Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” to Puccini’s “La boheme,” the notes waft out into the Rocky Mountain air. It’s loud, and it’s been blaring from the speakers of a nearby 7-Eleven. It’s not the only store in town adding a musical soundtrack to the skies. There’s another at South Nevada and Cimarron.

The music is intended to repel loiterers and keep away the riffraff. Police records indicate officers have been called to these locations hundreds of times. The jury is still out on just how “effective” the unconventional musical tactic will turn out to be. Given that it’s been in use for months, early indications are favorable.

Opera — derived from the Latin word “opus” or work — dates to 1598, and was once considered the most popular form of entertainment in Europe. Jacop Peri, an Italian composer who wrote “Dafne,” enjoys the distinction of writing the first one.

Not all operas are alike, of course, and affinity for the genre is like beauty — in the eye of the beholder. But that music historically considered refined is believed to beat back or turn away anybody shouldn’t be our main concern.

Instead, we should be alarmed that blaring music is considered an acceptable tactic of either offense or defense in a city as great as Colorado Springs.

Hearing the music each week as we bring our middle son to practice with the junior USA Shooting Team at the Olympic Training Center, I can’t help but be reminded of a famous incident in our nation’s history.

Readers of a certain age will remember how Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega took refuge inside the Vatican embassy in Panama City after the United States’ liberation operation in 1989. Despite being surrounded, Noriega refused to surrender. In search of a peaceful resolution, Army Humvees with loudspeakers blaring loud rock music were ordered in.

While Americans were enjoying Christmas carols back in America, there was no “Silent Night” at the Vatican embassy. Instead, music from The Doors, Van Halen, U2, and Guns’N’Roses filled the humid air. The musical torture experiment lasted just three days after Catholic representatives complained. Noriega finally gave up on Jan. 3, 1990. He spent his remaining years in prisons and hospitals until his death in 2017.

Musical “torture” is the equivalent of taking drugs to dull pain instead of digging in to figure out the source of the suffering. As both a city, state, and nation, we need to do more than shoo away with music — we need to seek substantive solutions.

Loiterers and the homeless exist for many reasons, but largely because of broken homes and broken hearts, tragic mental illness, an epidemic of hopelessness, and a general lack of meaning and purpose for so many. The state has only poured gasoline on the fire by legalizing marijuana.

The reformer Martin Luther once said, “Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” He was right — and until the music is more draw than drain, we’ll know we have more work to do.

PAUL BATURA