Baltimore Opera Company

[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.

The Grote Zaal (Great Hall) of the Concertgebouw after which the Baltimore Lyric Opera House was modeled.