John Deacon wonders:

>Is this a question of a lack of interest, a lack of funding, too time
>consuming for academics or is there some other explanation?
>
>Perhaps amongst US listers Professor Chasan can offer some thoughts on
>this?

I'm not Professor Chasan, nor do I know the answer.  I don't quite accept
that it's a lack of interest, since I know of several people in the area
who regularly take the train to NYC for doses of opera.  However, I can say
for sure that, despite Sarah Caldwell and the premiere of several important
operas in that city, Boston has never been an "opera town."  In his study
of Gottschalk, _Bamboula!_, S. Frederick Starr uses New Orleans (and, by
extension, New York) and Boston as two poles in American musical life:
essentially, Mediterranean and Germanic.  Dwight, the New England apostle
of classical music and editor of Dwight's Miscellany, thought opera "low,"
spiritually unworthy.  Many of our attitudes toward classical music can be
traced to Dwight, including our concert deportment.  He may have been a
prig, but he was also enormously influential.  I wouldn't be surprised to
find that Boston's lack of opera is at least in part a holdover.

On the other hand, there are other cities where symphonic music
predominates to the detriment of other forms.  Cleveland, for example,
has a world-class orchestra and very little opera.  To some extent, it's
a matter of enough musicians to go around and a scarcity of funds.  It
takes money - lots of it - to start and maintain an opera company.  If
you contribute to music in Cleveland, you likely send your dough to the
Cleveland Orchestra - the brand name and a whiz at fundraising.  There are
indeed other musical organizations in Cleveland, but they are to a large
extent crowded out.  Perhaps the same thing happens in Boston.

Are they any closer to completing that underground highway (or, in this
case, lowway)?

Steve Schwartz