“By construction, any automation will defeat the purpose of a live performance, which is the experience that the audience is paying for.”

Every few years, you’ll hear a familiar refrain: “Opera is dying.”

National surveys point to slumping attendance at live performances. Audiences are aging, leaving fewer fans to fill seats at productions of “La Bohème,” “Carmen,” “The Magic Flute” and the like, while production costs grow.

OMAHA — A youth sports facility has come up as another potential use as part of a North Omaha business park site to be developed with help from a $90 million state grant.

Described as an indoor-outdoor multipurpose complex for “soft turf” sports — such as football, soccer, softball and baseball — the possible project would rise at the Enterprise Park near 16th and Locust Streets, a tract that had previously been downplayed because of environmental cleanup costs.