Spanning 2022–2026, Boston Lyric Opera’s five-year strategic plan leverages our historical strengths as the leading opera company in the region with new capabilities and expanding relationships with the people and communities of Greater Boston. Together, the work we do in the next five years will lay the foundation for the fifty years that follow.
STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE | June 2024

Boston Lyric Opera, in collaboration with Midway Artist Studios, is establishing a new artmaking and community gathering space for Boston’s cultural communities. Announcing the recent expansion of the Opera + Community Studios!

The historic waterfront neighborhood of Fort Point is a creative center for working and living artists (learn more here). The Opera + Community Studios will comprise more than 16,000 square feet of space designed to grow a hub of artistic creation, cultural collaboration and community engagement.

As part of our five-year strategic plan, this expansion fulfills a critical step toward a shared vision for the arts in Boston. This moment also marks a milestone for BLO, integrating our dynamic artistic operations under one roof. For presentation of mainstage performances, BLO will continue to use various venues throughout the city while exploring collaborative solutions for a dedicated performing arts venue that meets the needs of modern audiences and artists across various disciplines for large-scale shows.

The Opera + Community Studios will be used in its current multi-level, open-format state over the next year, with a new dedicated $10.5 million fundraising initiative to support this expansion and a potential build-out of additional studios, support spaces, and amenities aimed for completion by the start of the 2026/27 Season (BLO’s 50th anniversary season). We are grateful to our community and the many champions and supporters who’ve helped us reach this moment.

Visit our Opera + Community Studios page or join BLO’s email list for updates. Join us! We welcome you to the Studios and invite you to create, collaborate, and connect.

Save the Date! October 18 – 20, 2024 | Fall Open Studios | Free and open to the public

INTRODUCING:  OPERA + COMMUNITY STUDIOS!

Mission, Vision, Values

Boston Lyric Opera’s new mission, vision, and values were created with extensive participation by the leadership team and staff of the Company and represent the first time the organization has adopted a clear set of shared values to guide the work of our team.

OUR MISSION

Boston Lyric Opera inspires, entertains, and connects communities through compelling opera performances, programs, and gatherings.

OUR VISION

To create operatic moments that enrich everyday life.

OUR VALUES

Boldness
We tell evocative stories through music and drama on a large scale and in unexpected settings. We celebrate the rich history of opera and promote adventurousness, which advances the art form, accesses our imaginations, and inspires new thinking.
Collaboration
Opera is deeply interconnected storytelling, music, and design on an ambitious level that requires many people’s artistry, technical skill, passion, participation, and support. We nurture creative people and partnerships that are diverse in thinking and experiences, and we provide structure and support for everyone to thrive.
Connection
We nurture a vital ecosystem of relationships and exchanges that elevate the human experience and impact people. These connections are the force that strengthens us and our communities.
Learning
We seek opportunities to learn new ideas and expand our minds, which drives progress. We create time and space to listen, engage, and grow together.
Belonging
We are committed to storytelling that reflects a wide variety of perspectives and identities and invites everyone to participate. We create welcoming and accessible spaces that celebrate the uniqueness of our communities.


BLO’s priority for 45 years has been to produce a range of accessible, relevant, and remarkable opera performances each season that both captivate audiences and reflect our diverse community. To build on our rich legacy, BLO can think beyond the traditional ways of presenting and promoting opera and expand opportunities to:
  • leverage the full spectrum of performance types on our stages, both physical and cinematic/streaming
  • include a diverse cross-section of Greater Boston’s peoples and communities in our artistic choices and our storytelling
  • develop collaborative programmatic partnerships
  • design an intentional mix of free and paid programming
Key Priorities:
  • Season programming mix: Continue BLO’s tradition of presenting a well-balanced offering of opera works each season while expanding the variety of performance experiences.
  • Creators and storytellers: Commit to a programming model that centers a diverse experience.
  • Collaborations with Greater Boston arts companies: Work with our Boston arts and cultural partners, including co-produced programs in a variety of sizes and scales each season
  • Develop digital partnerships: Remain active in cinematic and streaming programming through partnerships in order to share resources and lower costs.

BLO has an opportunity to deliver greater value to the community while increasing engagement and diversifying its supporters. BLO has an opportunity to demonstrate that other arts organizations, neighbors, and the community at large can benefit from both the scale BLO has to provide and the Company’s nimbleness and flexibility. It will not suffice to attract new people to a one-time activity or rely on BLO’s mainstage performances without resourcing pathways toward meaningful relationships that capture contact information, listen to and engage with audiences, and have targeted follow-up approaches for deeper and continued engagement.
Key Priorities:
  • Be a good arts neighbor: Establish an active presence in the community through participation in civic activities, discourse, and advocacy.
  • Invest in artist development: Deepen relationships and partnerships within Greater Boston’s higher education academic sector and leading opera training programs.
  • Take a more critical approach to work we do and invite more people in: As developed through “The Butterfly Process,” apply a new framework for examining and mindfully producing culturally and racially significant works that connect to audiences today; bring our communities along through active and thought-provoking conversations.
  • Build public programs: Make opera accessible regardless of class or ability to pay.
  • Expand and deepen community engagement relationships: Identify new organizations with which to establish long-term, multi-year, community relationships. Strengthen and deepen current long-standing community engagement relationships.
  • Maintain youth education: Continue current youth education programs in Greater Boston area school districts; and with other civic partners like the Boston Public Library.

Boston has long lacked affordable arts space, affecting many artists and smaller arts organizations who need a place to create and perform. It is also the only major U.S. metropolitan area that does not have a dedicated, appropriate venue structured for opera.
For many years, Boston Lyric Opera has embraced this challenge through site-specific works and a reputation for adaptability. While the larger community works toward opportunities for performing arts space, BLO is making strategic investments to make affordable and flexible space available to artists, entrepreneurs, and cultural organizations. BLO is proud to be uniquely positioned to champion these efforts for our community to gather, create, and inspire together.
In collaboration with Midway Artist Studios, Boston Lyric Opera is establishing a new artmaking and community gathering space for Boston’s cultural communities. In June 2024, the company announced a multi-year lease for a 14,000 square foot signature location at Midway Artist Studios in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, expanding from its 2,000 square foot studio, the Fort Point Lyric Room. 
Key Priorities:
  • Activate new space: Capitalize on BLO’s newly established studio/office space at Midway Artist Studios to meet the varying needs of the organization.
  • Begin operating space: Gain experience in operating space to prepare for increased capacity and potential expansion into a larger space.
  • Become a resource for artists and neighbors: Create a roadmap to maximize the use of BLO’s newly established space as a resource for the Fort Point and Greater Boston community.
  • Secure dependable performance venues: In the near term, establish performance venue residencies for season anchor productions during dependable time periods that meet artistic and audience needs.
To learn more visit Opera + Community Studios. 

Together, we have identified the next challenge: building our leadership by aligning our governance and leadership structures with the updated mission and values, investing in our staff leadership, expanding our board cohort, and securing the capital and capacity needed to support BLO’s mission and be responsible stewards of its assets.
Key Priorities:
  • Define areas of service: Leverage current board and leadership strengths, focus individual efforts, and engineer purposefulness for every BLO leader.
  • Look forward: Cultivate a constant pipeline of the next generation of diverse Board leaders who share values that align with organizational strategies, goals, and needs.
  • Reinforce the foundation: Secure the capital and capacity needed to support BLO’s mission and be responsible stewards of its assets.

To fulfill our mission, we must engage people of all backgrounds —meaningfully and respectfully— throughout our organization. For Boston Lyric Opera, advancing the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility is a moral priority and a necessity for our success. As adopted by the Board in the 2021/22 Season, we commit to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization and fostering healthy, vital communities. To that end, this work underscores all that we do and is embedded in our strategic priorities.
We recognize that this work will take time, intentional actions, and accountability from our Board, employees, artists, patrons, and community. We commit to embracing individuals from all backgrounds and identities.
Opera has the power to speak the truth, broaden perspectives, and invite empathy. We acknowledge that the history of operas and those engaged in opera has not always been diverse or inclusive. We believe that we can address the necessary changes for opera to evolve and thrive.
Our DEIA Values:
Boston Lyric Opera commits to exhibiting the following values:
  • We acknowledge and appreciate the inherent human rights of all individuals without discrimination.
  • We believe that our work must be based on mutual respect.
  • We aim to examine our actions so that we may act without bias based on the differences we encounter during our work.
  • We aspire to listen, learn, and seek diversity among the voices that join us in our work.

To increase its focus on community, BLO has identified community as one of the critical pillars of its strategy and more precisely defined four community segments to clarify its efforts. To effectively engage, our organization and our people must listen and learn from our community so that we remain a vital civic contributor and build meaningful, authentic, and lasting relationships.
These segments are:
  • Audiences
    This group includes those who are attending or have the propensity to participate in BLO public events and performances – whether free or paid, live or digital.
  • Champions
    This group includes individuals and organizations investing in or otherwise actively supporting BLO’s mission, including board members, donors, patrons, funding organizations, volunteers, advocates in schools and businesses, community spokespeople, and others who bring value to the organization.
  • Neighbors
    Good neighbors are friendly, considerate, and respectful, and they listen and learn from the others around them. By being mindful of our neighbors, and their experiences, BLO can show that our organization will always keep the community in mind.
  • Artists
    This group includes the broad workforce that makes operas happen – all artists, creators, producers, and staff.
As BLO looks to build for a sustainable future, it has an opportunity to invest in “Neighbors” and other “Audience” segments in order to increase and diversify its audiences and deliver value to the community while sustaining cultivation and engagement with those who are “Champions.”

For questions, or to learn more about BLO’s strategic plan, contact us at access@blo.org.

Images:

  • Photos from BLO’s 2021/22 productions of Cavalleria rusticana and Champion: credit: Liza Voll Photography
  • Photo from BLO Street Stage: credit: Above Summit
  • BLO’s 2019/20 production of The Handmaid’s Tale: credit: Liza Voll Photography
  • BLO’s 2019/20 production of Pagliacci: credit: Liza Voll Photography
  • BLO Advisor Amy Tsurumi and friends: credit: Above Summit
  • BLO’s 2022/23 production of Romeo & Juliet: credit: Nile Scott Photography
  • Members of the BLO Orchestra: credit: Above Summit