BALTIMORE — The Lyric sits as its own island touching the Station North, Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon neighborhoods. This Mount Royal Avenue cultural institution resists change (its historic interior was last updated in 1982) and yet bends successfully.

The city’s grand music hall, now in its 130th year and showing no sign of slowing down, is currently being marketed as Lyric Baltimore.

This past year its sprawling auditorium of 2,563 seats was busy with shows booked 85 nights and afternoons, with a handful of Baltimore City Schools performances in the morning.

This cavernous, hard-working old-fashioned music hall has successfully rebooted itself after the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which performed here for more than 60 years, began playing in 1982 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Hall. The Baltimore Opera Co. gave its final performance here before folding in 2009.

In the last decade, new management and ideas have made the Lyric a different place, fitting a pop culture niche somewhere between the big acts at the CFG Bank Arena, the Broadway shows at the Hippodrome and plays at Everyman, Center Stage, Chesapeake Shakespeare and Arena Stage.

“We host diverse, popular entertainment that appeals to people of all ages and tastes,” said Jonathan Schwartz, the executive director of the nonprofit Lyric Foundation.

Today the Lyric remains owned and operated as Lyric Baltimore, a charitable nonprofit owned and operated by the 20-member Lyric Foundation, Inc.

While it gets some funding from the Maryland State Arts Council and appropriations from the General Assembly, its ticket buyers float the finances of this somewhat unrecognized arts venue.

Instead of Verdi and Puccini (whose names remain ensconced in gold and crimson paint on the walls), the old house rocks with “Dancing with the Stars,” Diana Ross and her show, comedians Nikki Glaser and Fortune Feimster.

“Nate Bargatze, the comedian, played the Lyric in 2023 and is playing the CFG Arena this summer. Lyric Baltimore is the venue for comedians who want to perform in a wonderful venue, with great acoustics in the Mount Royal community,” said Schwartz.

“We also host local performers like Stavros Halkias, who was born in Baltimore and is now a national star,” Schwartz said. “Comedy is a critical component of our calendar, but popular music is also big. And let’s not forget the kids’ shows: Charlie Brown’s Christmas and Dogman: The Musical, and Blippi.”

The foundation does not produce shows. Schwartz, who came to Baltimore in 1993 when his wife, Dr. Jennie Faber, was doing her medical residency, had been staff director to Baltimore County Council member Vicki Almond. He was recruited to the Lyric post and works to keep the place filled with talent, new and established.

“Our biggest competitor is not in Baltimore,” said Schwartz. “It’s a person in Los Angeles who routes a show to D.C., Philadelphia and Boston and thinks they’re done with the East Coast. Baltimore is a terrific market for live entertainment and we reach out to promoters and agents to bring their acts here.”

The Lyric, as a changed place, has hosted the late Robin Williams, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band in 2022. And years before that, the Grateful Dead played here.

The Lyric has a deep music presentational history. Built when a quarter of Baltimore residents spoke German as their mother language, it hosted singing societies and orchestras, as well as opera companies.

Virtually every celebrated performer in classical music came through the Lyric’s stage door for about a century. A touring component of the Metropolitan Opera played the Lyric too, giving newspaper society writers plenty of work on those evenings.

There’s a plaque noting that Rachmaninoff played the piano part at his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” at its 1934 debut at the Lyric with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

After the symphony left in the 1980s, the Lyric finally got a real lobby and decent elevators. There was never quite enough money to complete the original plans for the structure (no fancy lobby), and for years the land around the Lyric entrance was occupied by a funeral home and an auto dealership.

The Lyric did a stint calling itself an opera house and was once sponsored through a philanthropic gift by former Ravens owner Art Modell and his wife, actress Patricia Breslin. Some Broadway shows played here too in the 1980s. The results were mixed.

“The pandemic is over and the Lyric is coming off a successful 2024. We’ll be continuing the positive momentum. Our aspiration is to have 120 shows next year,” said Steve Palmer, the Lyric Foundation’s chair.

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