“Opera Connects” is an artistic partnership between the faculty, alumni and current students of Xavier University of Louisiana and Loyola University New Orleans. Founded in 2022, the group presents its third annual concert on Sunday, March 3, at 3pm in Nunemaker Auditorium. The event honors the Feast Day of Saint Katharine Drexel, patron saint of racial justice, and philanthropy foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and Xavier University of Louisiana. The musical program will include highlights from Le Spahi, an opera by Creole composer Lucien Lambert, whose father was born in New Orleans. The dramatic 1897 work, from the final flourish of exotic operas by French composers, features a love story between a native woman and a soldier for hire in what is modern day Senegal.