[2] Productions of Gioachino Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, scheduled respectively for March and May 2009, were canceled, and ticket-holders did not receive refunds.
In 1963, the Ford Foundation made a generous contribution that allowed the company to stabilize a format of three operas a season and to hire a full-time Production Manager.
For the occasion of the American Bicentennial in 1976, the Company appropriately commissioned its first work, opera Inês de Castro, composed by Thomas Pasatieri with a libretto by Bernard Stambler.
This work was a major American operatic event and featured a cast that included Richard Stilwell, James Morris, and Lili Chookasian, with staging by Tito Capobianco.
Formerly, the company mounted four productions a year, one example being the 2007/2008 season which consisted of Verdi's La forza del destino, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.