AMONG THE LIVING: Of the four operas at this year’s Fort Worth Opera Festival, two (Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers and Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata) are by living composers. One advantage to programming these contemporary pieces is that you can actually talk to the composers about their work. Which is exactly what dfw.com did. Adamo tells the site that, like most other artistic pursuits, success allows a little more freedom. “There are companies that say, ‘We have a novel in mind; we want you to compose an opera.’ Little Women worked like that. That’s a very typical young-composer thing. What happens now is that they say, ‘We would like an opera from you; what do you want to do?’ though you don’t necessarily get carte blanche.”

DANCING AND SINGING: Fort Worth Opera won’t be the only opera available to you this weekend in the 817. Artes de la Rosa debuts its Maria de Buenos Aires: A Tango Operita tonight. The show tells the story of the tango and includes tango (obviously) opera, theater and even ballet. All of those elements made casting tricky. “We needed dancers who could sing rather than the other way around,” director Adam Adolfo tells theaterjones.com. “And they have to look the part.”

PARK POLITICS: We’re all pretty much happy with the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava, right? Well, not everyone is happy with Calatrava. The starchitect is designing a cultural park in his home region of Valencia, Spain, and some of the residents aren’t happy with the reported 100 million euros he’s billed the government so far. If you can read Spanish, the complaints are gathered on this website. Calatrava’s response: “The attitude of those who want to take advantage of the current economic climate to criticise a project whose benefits no one has challenged is simply indescribable.”