CBTO's public debut came in September 1987 with the production of Falstaff at the Cocks Moors Woods Leisure Centre in Brandwood.

In 1989 City of Birmingham Touring Opera commissioned and performed Ravi Shankar's work of musical theatre Ghanashyam (A Broken Branch), which won the company's first Prudential Award for Arts; the 1990 production of Richard Wagner's Ring Saga, adapted for performance over two nights and with a reduced orchestra of eighteen musicians, won the second.

On a much larger scale, however, the Company also performed Verdi's La traviata to an audience of almost 10,000 people at the National Indoor Arena in 2007.

Birmingham Opera has a long history of collaboration with contemporary British composer Jonathan Dove, including commissioning and performing Dove's composition Life is a Dream in March 2012, an opera in three acts with the libretto written by Alasdair Middleton and based on the play of the same name by Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

Dove has also created new arrangements of classic works for the Company, including 1988's Falstaff, 1990's Ring Saga and 1991's La bohème.