These recent plot twists on network soap operas were designed specifically to expand an audience that gets older and smaller every year.
Buxton Opera House was designed by Frank Matcham in 1903 and is the highest opera house in the country.
To one side of the spacious plaza, the opulent 19th-century opera house is designed to look as if its colossal rotunda could slide across the square and fit like a puzzle piece into the concave center of the Baroque city hall.
The stage of the new hall is designed to accommodate opera, and that feature, in Mr. Botstein's mind, opens the way not only to Verdi in 2003 but also to Smetana in 2004.
Understated at times, the production is designed by Wu as a commentary on his apprenticeship and career in Beijing opera.
The world in which the opera is set -- by John Macfarlane's designs and Jennifer Tipton's lighting -- is dark and forbidding, a place where nature has to protect itself.
Designs were simple, as the opera is, but also enticing.
Here the opera is an annual fixture.
And the opera is vast indeed.
"The opera is top heavy," he said.
