May 30, 2005

A feeling of the unsettled past had settled over St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, in recent days. Rather than shrug it off, the church's organist, Salvatore Mazzucco, who has a keen ear for long and trembling notes, seized it with a plan. Memorial Day was approaching, he told the Rev. Christopher Cashman, pastor and sole priest of the 154-year-old Roman Catholic parish. The church should remember its war dead.

Laws of physics notwithstanding, for Alberto W. Vilar, the bubble popped twice. Through much of the 1990's, he was a seeming savant, a financial pied piper leading legions of wealthy followers to his Park Avenue investment firm and its bets on high tech. As hot money rolled in by the billions, Mr. Vilar stepped up his already generous philanthropy, transforming himself into a prominent patron of the Metropolitan Opera, as well as other opera houses, orchestras and medical research institutions.

Shortly after Matt Cone began working at Microsoft in 1994, he looked into playing in a lacrosse league. Cone, who grew up in Massachusetts and played at Ithaca College, was dismayed to find there were only 30 teams in the state of Washington. Today, there are more than 200 teams in Washington, including 86 high school club teams, a boom that is indicative of lacrosse's status as perhaps the fastest-growing team sport in America. The popularity of lacrosse -- known as the fastest sport on two feet -- has rapidly spread outside the traditional pockets of Long Island, upstate New York and the mid-Atlantic region. California, Florida, Michigan and Minnesota have sanctioned high school lacrosse programs in recent years, and Washington is expected to join them soon.

Shaquille O'Neal turned to Alonzo Mourning on the way to the Palace of Auburn Hills on Sunday afternoon and uttered words that would change the game. Mourning said O'Neal told him, ''I feel great.''

Anthony Tommasini reviews Los Angeles Opera production of Verdi's Falstaff, with Bryn Terfel in title role; photo (M)