Despite my huge reluctance at returning from a glorious month in my native Hawaii, once more I realized exactly why I live in New York when I attended Joyce DiDonato’s utterly magical concert and release party for her ravishing new CD, “Stella di Napoli.” It celebrates the birth of bel canto opera in 19th century Naples, and the event took place at the Gowanus Ballroom in Brooklyn, a working metal factory by day alongside that toxic canal which, on the night of October 3, managed to look as enchanting as any in Venice. The concert was presented in collaboration with LoftOpera, one of those essential small companies that has rushed into the breach left by the sad demise of New York City Opera. It is staging “The Barber of Seville,” and offered samples, featuring wonderful Mexican baritone José Adán Pérez in the title role, who sang with such ardor, musicality, and acting élan  that I am not going to miss this production for the world (loftopera.com).

The evening, however, was DiDonato’s all the way. Renee Fleming has somehow been dubbed “The People’s Diva,” but I feel this appellation suits DiDonato far more, and she proved it once more with her singular choice of this perfect, unexpected venue and the passion with which she performed and even lectured the audience — comprised of many young hipsters, obviously opera newbies — about the history and wonders of bel canto. She made this miraculous era of music-making fully come to life, and her soaring voice beautifully served the arching melodies of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini, as well as lesser known but quite marvelous composers like Pacini and Mercadante.

In a spirit of hospitality combining both Brooklyn and Italia, free beer was served all night, as well as pizza after the concert. Instead of being whisked away to some luxe after-soiree with millionaire patrons, DiDonato simply changed out of her gorgeous Vivienne Westwood sequined gown into a more casual sequined party shift, grabbed a brewski, and hung out all night. She told me how excited she was to be doing Handel’s “Alcina” at Carnegie Hall on October 26 (Carnegiehall.org), for which Westwood is again designing her dress, “making my character’s transformation something wonderfully reptilian!”

Anti-gay bullying is one of DiDonato’s special concerns, and she performed beautifully at last spring’s terrific “Broadway Battles Bullying” benefit at NYU and was recently filmed by PBS singing Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament” at the Stonewall Inn, “in tribute,” she said, “to victims of this kind of senseless violence which I cannot believe is happening in this day and age. (joycedidonato.com)

Opera superstar Joyce DiDonato topped classical music charts internationally this fall with her new release “Stella di Napoli,” but she uses pop culture to describe what’s on the album: “It’s as if you found out the Beatles have 20 hit tunes they didn’t release.”

The album revisits opera’s nearly lost hits of 19th-century Naples, including deep cuts by well-known composers, such as Rossini and Donizetti, plus once-famous composers whose star status faded over the centuries. Three arias on the album have not been previously recorded.

She’s now taking these rarities directly to 21st-century Brooklyn hipsters: on Friday, she’ll perform a live-streamed launch concert at the Gowanus Ballroom, an alternative arts space sharing a warehouse with a metal shop in a neighborhood best known for its polluted canal.

Though this Grammy Award-winner has sung on the world’s greatest stages – from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to La Scala in Milan – her unconventional choice of venue supports her goal of expanding the audience for opera. “The whole idea is, how can we bring it into a space that is welcoming, cool and fabulous… getting it out of the formality of the theater?” she said.

The concert will be streamed live on the web, via the online platform livestream.com, and is something of a double bill: The famed mezzo-soprano will share the stage with LoftOpera, a scrappy Brooklyn-based company known for full-length productions in loft-style spaces and $30 tickets.

“They are young singers and musicians. I’m trying to shine a light on them,” said Ms. DiDonato. “They’re doing opera — hard-core opera — and they sell out in matter of hours.”

LoftOpera (whose members all have day jobs) has never before worked with a star of Ms. DiDonato’s caliber, but they found common ground in their shared mission. “Opera doesn’t deserve to die,” said LoftOpera general manager Brianna Maury.

A similar sentiment fueled Ms. DiDonato’s work on “Stella di Napoli,” which takes its name from the rarely performed opera by Giovanni Pacini. (Yes, Pacini. Not Puccini.) The majority of the music was found by musicologist and conductor Riccardo Minasi, who went to Naples hoping to unearth gems that would surprise listeners – and spark a few double takes.

Most opera buffs have a recording of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” but this album includes the world premiere recording of an aria from “Le nozze di Lammermoor” by Michele Carafa. And if you know Bellini’s “La sonnambula,” you’ll want to hear “Il sonnambulo” by Carlo Valentini.

If the names aren’t familiar, that’s the point, writes Mr. Minasi in the album’s liner notes: “We came across many neglected composers who deserved a place on the musical Olympus where history had placed only Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.”

Ms. DiDonato, who wears a Hollywood-worthy dress by Alexander McQueen on the album cover, again reverts to popular culture to describe the creativity of the mid-1800s in one Italian town: “That short period in Naples evokes the sense of what Andy Warhol’s factory must have been like.”

And for the upcoming joint concert, LoftOpera is taking the factory reference quite literally. Said Ms. Maury: “We are going to have someone welding at the top of the show.”

If anyone is looking for a sign that opera is on the verge of a big change they need to look no further than the launch party for Joyce DiDonato’s new album, Stella di Napoli. Not surprisingly, it has made huge international waves not only for its quality, but its uniqueness as well. It is a set of unheard and forgotten songs from the 19th Century by prolific composers like Rossini and Donizetti. However, it’s not so much the album’s content that have turned heads these past few weeks, rather it’s the location DiDonato chose to hold the party. Under the Sputnik-inspired, Swarovsky chandeliers of the Met? Nope. At the recently saved and rejuvenated San Diego Opera? Guess again. In the center of Napoli? Wrong. Loft Opera, a tiny but innovative new opera company in Brooklyn, received the call of lifetime: opera’s darling, superstar mezzo wanted to honor Loft’s ardent, avante-garde company with a concert performance of her new album.

You can pick your jaw up now. But why Loft? Well, it is Brooklyn – perhaps the universe’s epicenter for everything hip. But this goes beyond trying to sell an album. This is an acknowledgement from the top tier that a shift in the identity of opera is not only necessary, but is already happening. Moreover, DiDonato indirectly makes it acceptable in the eyes of those who believe that the last century of opera performance is the only way to go; with taste buds merely able to palate that which is grand.

DiDonato uses her status generously and responsibly. In one simple gesture she shows the world that she supports the growth of new companies and innovative new places – big or small. There are not many other forces out there that are doing the job as well. The media is always outdating opera, even when they don’t mean to. For example, on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal posted a blog on Speakeasy on this very topic. Pia Catton summed up the events nicely, but in her attempt to weave a recurring pop-culture theme with the hip atmosphere of Loft she trivializes the connection that DiDonato tries to make in her comparisons of opera, arts and eras. Why is it surprising that Ms. DiDonato refers to the Beatles or Warhol’s factory? Could it not just be that a beautiful, sexy and talented singer liked the look of a Hollywood-style dress enough to feature it on the cover of her album and that, like most conversationalists do to emphasize a point, relate an unknown but important subject to that of a popular and historically significant subject. If Ms. DiDonato had been coached on how to best promote her new album and was trained to connect to a pop-culture paradigm then one would have to believe names like The Strokes, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, and Spencer Tunick would have graced her tongue. Instead, this deceptively harmful prose, which is laden in the media’s handling of the classical arts, only serves to separate the form even more. It creates a sense of surprise and border between the reader and the artist. Why distance it? For, if opera’s due credit were given, we’d find that it is more avante-garde, more innovative and perhaps more risqué when compared to any other popular form. It needs no such qualification through prose, but merely to be talked about in a relaxed, modern tone.

We applaud you Ms. DiDonato for using your stardom in a generous way. Such public acts seem to be working as Joshua Bell even did such a thing in Union Station this week playfully giving a second chance to the thousands that passed him by years back when he performed there unannounced. Needless to say, he had onlookers in a tizzy. I’ll bet you’re curious if there are tickets available for Loft’s big night this Friday. Well, maybe you can be one of the lucky ones to score a ticket to such an internationally curious, yet intimately plugged-in occasion.