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Planning an opera season is a little like planning a wedding, says Evans Mirageas, artistic director of the Cincinnati Opera.

"You want something old, something new and so on," he said. "In a season with four operas, the challenge is greater than a season of eight operas because you only have four chances to make an impression."

Each year, he said, he wants to make sure that there's a show that will appeal to people new to opera, and that will usually be one of the 10 core operas in the canon — about seven of which, he said, will be by Puccini.

He also said that he has to respect the die-hard opera fans who like variety as well as the top 10, and to pick either a lesser-known work by a well-known composer or a well-known work by a lesser-known composer, and finally a new opera by a living composer or a dead composer whose work has never been done by Cincinnati Opera.

And all of this must be done in collaboration with the sales, marketing and production people in the organization, and the board of directors, so that everyone is totally committed to the season.

Whew!

And with that in mind, here's the 2008 season:

• Puccini's "Madame Butterfly," June 11, 13 and 15;

• "Lucie de Lammermoor," a French Revision

of "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Gaetano Donizetti,

June 26 and 28;

• The Cincinnati Opera premiere of "Florencia en el Amazonas," by Daniel Catán, July 10 and 12;

• "La Traviata: by Giuseppe Verdi, July 23, 25 and 27.

Subscriptions and single tickets are now on sale. Single tickets range from $25-$145 per ticket. To purchase tickets, call the Cincinnati Opera Box Office at (513) 241-2742 or visit www.cincinnatiopera.org. All performances are at Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Cincinnati.

CONTACT this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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