Boston Lyric Opera

It’s a nearly impossible story: In the mid-1700s, Joseph Bologne, the illegitimate son of an African enslaved woman and a French plantation owner, became a brilliant composer known by the moniker Chevalier de Saint-Georges. This month, Boston audiences can experience the fruit of this musical talent’s labor in “The Anonymous Lover,” a romantic comedy opera helmed by a diverse creative team with Boston Lyric Opera.

Who doesn’t know the story of Cinderella, the unloved stepdaughter used by her relatives as their maid until by magical intervention she finds true love with a prince? In the new Boston Lyric Opera production of “La Cenerentola,” Italian for Cinderella, kindness and wisdom, instead of a glass slipper, guide the heroine to her prince.

Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) commissioned “The Wanderer’s Tethering,” a bold new work by Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola and composer Mason Bynes that tells the story of Georgia’s Igbo revolution in 1803.

A dark and moving slice of America’s past comes to life on stage in “Omar,” created by Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and acclaimed film, television and classical music composer Michael Abels and performed by the Boston Lyric Opera.

One of the Western canon’s most famous romances, and tragedies, “Romeo and Juliet” takes the stage on Boston Common August 11 and 13. The free, public performances produced by Boston Lyric Opera in partnership with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) and the City of Boston aim to bring the city together under the stars to celebrate the art of drama.

This month, the Boston Lyric Opera returns to the stage for its first full performance in a theater since 2019. And they’re coming back with a bang: “Champion: An Opera in Jazz” celebrates the legacy of six-time world champion prizefighter Emile Griffith.

Boston Lyric Opera returns to the stage with “Cavalleria Rusticana,” playing Oct. 1 and 3 at the large outdoor Leader Bank Pavilion.