We have been asked to post a cry for help from Eyal Ein-Habar, principal flute of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. His flute was in a black bag on a flight from Chapel Hill to Philadelphia on April 4th and was taken, perhaps by mistake, by another passenger.

The instrument is a 19.5k Powell flute. Serial no. 13176.

Eyal is distraught. Please help him find it by sharing this information.

UPDATE: No sign yet of the missing flute. Eyal has given some more details here.

Kristine Opolais, who sang her first Madam Butterfly at the Met last night, will star again tonight in La Boheme. That’s brave. Ms Opolais is married to the conductor Andris Nelsons. Substitute announcement follows.

Subject: Metropolitan Opera Cast Change Advisory – Today’s La Boheme

Kristine Opolais will sing Mimi in today’s matinee performance of Puccini’s La Bohème, replacing Anita Hartig, who is ill.

Miss Opolais has agreed to perform today on extremely short notice after singing the title role of Madama Butterfly for the first time at the Met just last evening. Opolais has sung Mimi with the Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, and Latvian National Opera and will sing the role at the Met next season. She made an acclaimed Met debut last year as Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine.

Today’s performance of La Bohème, which is being transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, is expected to reach a global audience of more than 300,000 people.

La Bohème also stars Susanna Phillips as Musetta, Vittorio Grigolo as Rodolfo, Massimo Cavalletti as Marcello, Patrick Carfizzi as Schaunard, Oren Gradus as Colline, and Donald Maxwell as Benoît/Alcindoro. Stefano Ranzani conducts.

But they’ll need 14 more like Carol Lazier… and a whole new board and management team.

Still, it’s a start. Read all about Carol’s gift here.

Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, director of the music cognition lab at the University of Arkansas, has a theory – expanded in her book On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind (2013) – that music cannot survive without repetition. What the brain seeks on first hearing is something familiar. It is only with repeated hearing that music becomes music.

Apparently, the average iTunes user listens to the same album 347 times.

Read on here.