The arts media have been all agog in recent months over innovations being introduced to the opera world (notable, the Met’s simulcasting of live productions in movie theaters around the world.) David Patrick Stearns points out that though opera audiences are a notoriously conservative bunch, even by classical music standards, the changes had to come eventually. “Traditional views of traditional opera will always exist. But opera is among the greatest chameleons of the performing arts. It can be so many things. To make the traditional operatic experience the only experience is to cut off its tail.”