In seven months, the trio pulled together a full-scale production of Verdi's La Traviata, performed on November 25, 1946, in a building now known as the Cowtown Coliseum, located in the Fort Worth Stockyards.
Woods' prior experience included twenty years as a successful character tenor and general director of the Seagle Music Colony in upstate New York and Shreveport Opera.
On February 13, 2017, the Fort Worth Opera board of directors dismissed Woods from his post, citing differences over the future artistic and financial goals of the company.
During the company's 2020–2021 season, Fort Worth Opera launched FWO GO, an artistic initiative featuring socially distanced, pop-up performances in neighborhoods across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Voices for Votes, a series of mini-concerts to entertain voters waiting in long lines to cast their ballot on Election Day, and A Night of Black Excellence, an all-star concert in celebration of Black History Month.
The inaugural Fort Worth Opera Festival opened in May 2007 and featured the company's first main-stage world premiere, Frau Margot, by composer Thomas Pasatieri.
The company booked its second main-stage world premiere, Before Night Falls by Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín, based on the memoirs of Cuban poet and writer Reinaldo Arenas.
[7] In 2021, Fort Worth Opera announced repertory, casting, and live performances for its landmark 75th anniversary season, including the world premiere of composer-librettist Héctor Armienta's Zorro.
After 14 years of producing a nationally recognized Festival in the springtime, the organization returned to a year-round format during the 2021–2022 season, to expand its presence and visibility in the growing North Texas arts scene.