Music: Puccini's Swallow Soars

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That the Lyric Opera should take part in Rondine's restoration comes as no surprise. Founded in 1954, the company has always been a prime exponent of Italian opera in the U.S., a kind of La Scala West. Under Carol Fox, its late founder and general manager, Maria Callas made her American debut in a sizzling Norma, and the Lyric became home to such 1950s and '60s legends as Soprano Renata Tebaldi, Tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and Baritone Tito Gobbi. By 1980, though, economic troubles had put the company $300,000 in the red, and Fox was forced to resign.

Today, under Ardis Krainik, 56, a former mezzo who was once Fox's secretary, the company is again robust. The deficits are gone, the budget has risen from $9.1 million four seasons ago to $14.8 million this year, and the number of productions will increase from eight to nine next year. Ticket sales have run at 92% of the opera house's 3,520-seat capacity. Quality is high too: this season, Bellini's bel canto I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Soprano Cecilia Gasdia and Mezzo Tatiana Troyanos was an unexpected smash hit, and the Lyric's tradition of presenting operatic superstars continued with Joan Sutherland in Donizetti's Anna Bolena.

Krainik's secret is "constant vigilance." She pares each opera's budget line by line, until expenses are balanced by box-office receipts and fund raising. This may seem like mere common sense, but in opera it is a radical approach. Of necessity, she chooses the repertoire carefully and conservatively, this season balancing ham-and-eggers like Butterfly and Traviata with Otello and Die Meistersinger, the lone German entry. "What I've learned," says Krainik, "is that you can have all the art you want if you've got the money."

The Lyric is setting an example for companies all over America. And not just fiscal: the Metropolitan Opera, for example, has not performed La Rondine since 1936. "It's love that generates all this," says Krainik, taking in her opera company, the Chicago River and the Lake Michigan shore with one expansive gesture. "We're here to put on beautiful music." And so they do. --By Michael Walsh