It’s been a landmark autumn for American opera. I haven’t been able to keep up — I made it to Dead Man Walking at the Met, followed by the X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Florencia en el Amazonas. It was wonderful to attend Intelligence in Houston and Omar in San Francisco. Seeing Glory Denied at Opera Company of Middlebury was my first experience of the opera, enhanced by a performance in a historic 200-seat hall. But I missed almost as much, including The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at The Dal­las Opera and El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego in Los Angeles — an opera supported by a modest grant from OPERA America that I have yet to see! It’s absolutely re­markable to inhabit the world we set out to create 40 years ago, one in which opera reflects the world we live in today.