October 24, 1982

THREE years ago the Connecticut Opera was facing one of its bleakest seasons ever. With a $60,000 deficit for fiscal year 1979, the nation's sixth-oldest professional opera company had serious cash-flow problems, a five-year ticket sale slump and a 1,250-member subscriber list that had remained static for 35 years. After mounting the world's largest indoor production of Verdi's ''Aida'' at the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum last year, it now appears that the black days for the Connecticut Opera are over. Under the whirlwind stewardship of George Osborne, who assumed the general director's chair in July 1979, the Connecticut Opera has not only retired its deficit, but also has reported an increasing surplus three years in a row.

King Hassan II of Morocco said today that the Arab nations would recognize Israel, but only after Israel had withdrawn its forces from the territory occupied since the 1967 war. The King spoke at a news conference a day after he and a six-nation Arab League delegation had discussed differing Arab and American peace plans with President Reagan. ''You obviously realize that we have entered a new phase in the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the conflict of war but of law and of rights,'' the King said. 'To Live in Peace' ''Our presence here shows that we also want ourselves to live in peace with Israel,'' he added, speaking in French. At the White House on Friday, the Moroccan leader said he was confident that ''peace and coexistence'' could come to the region on the basis of the Reagan peace plan announced on Sept. 1, the eightpoint Arab declaration issued at the close of a meeting in Fez, Morocco, on Sept. 9, and longstanding United Nations Security Council resolutions.

PRESIDENT Reagan, the state of the economy, conservatism, Joseph M. Margiotta - and the advantages of incumbency - will be tested in five Congressional races on Long Island 10 days from now. Four Republican incumbents and a lone Democrat, Representative Thomas J. Downey, are seeking re-election to a shrunken Long Island delegation to the House of Representatives. Another incumbent, Representative Gregory W. Carman, is not seeking re-election because his district was eliminated in the reduction of the Island districts from six to five in the decennial reapportionment. The reduction is part of a statewide drop of five House members because New York's population remained stable in the last 10 years while other parts of the country had population booms. The Island has a small slice of another district - the Eighth District, which extends from northern Queens into Great Neck. Representative James H. Scheuer, a Democrat whose district was moved from southern Queens and southeastern Brooklyn in the reapportionment, does not even have a Republican opponent and is virtually assured of re-election.

Social historians looking for more evidence of Americans' growing passion for their past can take note of the fuss in Weston, Conn., over the fate of three 100-year-old barns there. Early this year, town officials decided to sell the dilapidated barns, which sit on town land, believing them to lack any significant historic value.

WASHINGTON WHITE HOUSE aides last week quietly ordered up some district-bydistrict analysis of what the expected or, for that matter, unexpected Republican losses will do to President Reagan's governing coalition in Congress. The aim of this research project is not to shape the outcome of the Nov. 2 election. Instead, Mr. Reagan's advisers want to be armed on Nov. 3 to answer journalists who ask where the President will get votes to sustain his economic program. As the White House exercise in preventive public relations suggests, this is the season of fear, hope and rank speculation. While Mr. Reagan's aides fret about the future of the conservative coalition in the House of Representatives, Democratic strategists wring their hands at the thought that the Republicans' superiority in campaign money and technological resources may blunt Democratic gains. On both sides, there is almost obsessive curiosity about the other's expectations. ''I hear that the Democrats are really beginning to smell blood,'' a senior Reagan aide observed last week. ''They're officially talking 25 to 30 seats. They're privately talking 35 to 40.'' But, the Reagan aide concluded, only ''an overall major shift'' of public opinion against the President could give the Democrats more than a gain of 40.