Boston Lyric Opera

Boston Lyric Opera hosted a party celebrating the opening of "The Lighthouse" by Peter Maxwell Davies. About 100 guests joined BLO music director David Angus, Tim Albery, the production's stage director, Boston Conservatory president Richard Ortner, BLO artistic director Esther Nelson, and "The Lighthouse" cast: bass/baritone David Cushing, baritone Christopher Burchett, and tenor John Bellemer.

There was something poetic, as well as tragic, about the death of French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Just like the hero of his most famous book, "Le petit prince," he disappeared without a trace, after taking off from Corsica on a World War II reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean. "Le petit prince" itself has never disappeared. It's been translated into more than 200 languages. It's been turned into a Lerner & Loewe film musical, a Japanese "anime" series, several theater pieces, and at least four operas.

In advance of its fall gala Oct. 22, the Boston Lyric Opera held a tasting at the Mandarin Oriental this week, and the hotel's pastry chef Nelson Paz was joined by gala cochairs Willa Bodman and Alan Dynner . Paz, who recently appeared on season 2 of Bravo's "Top Chef: Just Desserts," fixed a "Macbeth"-themed "Black Currant Witch's Cauldron" dessert for the occasion. Not coincidentally, the BLO's 2011-12 season opens with "Macbeth" Nov. 4.

The Boston Lyric Opera celebrated the opening of Rossini's "Barber of Seville" Friday night with a dessert reception over the weekend at the Four Seasons. BLO supporters got to mingle with some of the opera's stars, including soprano Sarah Coburn, who plays Rosina, and tenor John Tessier, who plays Count Almaviva.

Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Boston Lyric Opera are two of four organizations in the United States singled out as exemplars of how to attract new audiences for the arts. The Wallace Foundation, a national foundation concerned with building arts audiences, studied the strategies of the museum and the opera company, along with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, in an effort to analyze what approaches work. The Gardner Museum was praised for its "Art After Hours" initiative, which set aside Thursday nights for a bar, live...

When Opera Boston announced just before Christmas that it was ceasing operations, the city's supply of fully staged opera was rather abruptly slashed. Opera Boston had, in its eight-year run, fed the city's appetite for novelty and rarity, putting on operas both new and old that had infrequently, if ever, been seen or heard here. The company's dissolution had its own specific pathology, of course: slow fund-raising in a down economy, maybe, or a fractured board. But in the wake of its unexpected collapse, one familiar theme emerged: Speaking of Boston, the company's former...

This NYC native also has a case of Boston's ‘little-town blues' RE "GISELE: Those little-town blues" (Editorial, Oct. 6): The fact that Boston is a small town, according to Gisele Bundchen, is evinced by the fact that its flagship newspaper would bother to waste space on its editorial page devoted to refuting her comments. By the way, from the perspective of one who grew up in the sacred and holy city of New York, Boston is a small town: In 34 years here, I have yet to find a decent bagel.

There was something poetic, as well as tragic, about the death of French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Just like the hero of his most famous book, "Le petit prince," he disappeared without a trace, after taking off from Corsica on a World War II reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean. "Le petit prince" itself has never disappeared. It's been translated into more than 200 languages. It's been turned into a Lerner & Loewe film musical, a Japanese "anime" series, several theater pieces, and at least four operas.

Boston Lyric Opera is on the move. New England’s largest opera company, both loved and criticized in recent years for its staunch traditionalism, has launched a new and rather untraditional initiative called Opera Annex, promising one adventurous work a year outside of its home at the Shubert Theatre. The first offering in this series, Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw,’’ opened last night in a new production at the Park Plaza Castle, a historic armory building never before used for opera.

PICK OF THE DAY Downs to business Becoming a mother has informed both the life and art of Mexican-American singer Lila Downs. It's the major inspiration for her latest release, "Pecados y Milagros. " Downs commissioned 15 Mexican painters to create votive paintings, or retablos, to accompany the music. While she performs with her band La Misteriosa, images of the works will be projected onstage. March 9, 8 p.m. $30-$42. Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., Boston.

PICK OF THE DAY Downs to business Becoming a mother has informed both the life and art of Mexican-American singer Lila Downs. It's the major inspiration for her latest release, "Pecados y Milagros. " Downs commissioned 15 Mexican painters to create votive paintings, or retablos, to accompany the music. While she performs with her band La Misteriosa, images of the works will be projected onstage. March 9, 8 p.m. $30-$42. Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., Boston.

Boston Lyric Opera's offerings next season will include new productions of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly," Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," and Wagner's "Flying Dutchman. " The company's Opera Annex series will feature the American premiere of the Scottish composer James MacMillan's "Clemency," a BLO co-commission. These and other details were announced Tuesday. BLO music director David Angus will conduct all the operas except the Puccini, which will open the season (Nov. 2-11) in a new production directed by Lillian Groag and conducted by Andrew Bisantz.

Boston Lyric Opera hosted a party celebrating the opening of "The Lighthouse" by Peter Maxwell Davies. About 100 guests joined BLO music director David Angus, Tim Albery, the production's stage director, Boston Conservatory president Richard Ortner, BLO artistic director Esther Nelson, and "The Lighthouse" cast: bass/baritone David Cushing, baritone Christopher Burchett, and tenor John Bellemer.

Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Boston Lyric Opera are two of four organizations in the United States singled out as exemplars of how to attract new audiences for the arts. The Wallace Foundation, a national foundation concerned with building arts audiences, studied the strategies of the museum and the opera company, along with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, in an effort to analyze what approaches work. The Gardner Museum was praised for its "Art After Hours" initiative, which set aside...

When Opera Boston announced just before Christmas that it was ceasing operations, the city's supply of fully staged opera was rather abruptly slashed. Opera Boston had, in its eight-year run, fed the city's appetite for novelty and rarity, putting on operas both new and old that had infrequently, if ever, been seen or heard here. The company's dissolution had its own specific pathology, of course: slow fund-raising in a down economy, maybe, or a fractured board. But in the wake of its unexpected collapse, one familiar theme emerged: Speaking of Boston, the company's former...

This NYC native also has a case of Boston's ‘little-town blues' RE "GISELE: Those little-town blues" (Editorial, Oct. 6): The fact that Boston is a small town, according to Gisele Bundchen, is evinced by the fact that its flagship newspaper would bother to waste space on its editorial page devoted to refuting her comments. By the way, from the perspective of one who grew up in the sacred and holy city of New York, Boston is a small town: In 34 years here, I have yet to find a decent bagel.

In his new book called "Musicophilia," Oliver Sacks writes about "brainworms," the little bits of incredibly catchy music that burrow deep into your head and refuse to leave. Puccini's "La Bohème" is full of them, and the opera itself has a similarly tenacious hold on the center of the repertoire. This is not a new trend. John Dizikes's "Opera in America" tells us that between 1900 and 1921, "Bohème" was performed at the Metropolitan Opera every season except one. Of course, the key difference is that during those decades, Puccini was still alive and this was contemporary music.

In advance of its fall gala Oct. 22, the Boston Lyric Opera held a tasting at the Mandarin Oriental this week, and the hotel's pastry chef Nelson Paz was joined by gala cochairs Willa Bodman and Alan Dynner . Paz, who recently appeared on season 2 of Bravo's "Top Chef: Just Desserts," fixed a "Macbeth"-themed "Black Currant Witch's Cauldron" dessert for the occasion. Not coincidentally, the BLO's 2011-12 season opens with "Macbeth" Nov. 4.