Gearing up to celebrate its 40th anniversary festival season, there can be little doubt that middle age agrees with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Over the past four decades, the opera company has staged some 24 world premieres. Last festival season witnessed the premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek's 27, the second installment in its New Works, Bold Voices series, a groundbreaking cycle of newly commissioned American operas. And that's to say nothing of the company's Gerdine Young Artist Program, a training ground for the next generation of divas, or the rest of its repertoire, which next season contains perennial favorites by Puccini and Rossini. And the market is responding. Bucking national trends, the company's endowment has grown by more than 50 percent since 2008, and donations are up 26 percent in the past five years. To all of which we say: Toi! Toi! Toi!