Caught up in my own romanticism, I had focused on learning far more challenging fare - filets de sole à la Walewska, poularde Toulousaine, sauce Vénetienne.

Those timid chamber ensembles wary of scaring off audiences with challenging fare should take note: this long program of mostly contemporary works was sold out.

The Volksbühne, for all its challenging fare, has been a hotbed of young audiences ever since.

Now, it's up to audiences and singers to demand more challenging fare.

But such arrangements also raise the question of whether some nonprofit shows are little more than tryouts for commercial productions and weaken the appetite for more experimental, challenging fare.

He was frustrated because the theatergoers seemed to like less challenging fare best.

Now the vast majority of truly challenging fare is presented by nonprofit theaters.

If an occasional solo passage lacked the utmost in luster, the ensemble sound was consistently strong and brilliant in unfamiliar, varied and challenging fare.

Audiences, it seems, will get in their cars for challenging fare.

The 32-page report calls in part for more aggressive fund-raising, better organized board recruitment and a season more balanced between popular and challenging fare.