Its operas were performed in English, usually with new translations of the libretto by professor Michael Irwin, but also by Norman Platt or Anne Riddler.
Anne Pashley and Sandra Browne were now the lovers, Laura Sarti sang Ottavia and John Tomlinson Seneca.
Later that year the production toured Kent and was seen at the City of London Festival: "It comes closer to the heart of this blazing masterpiece than any other I have heard", wrote the Sunday Telegraph.
This included commissioning children's operas from Alan Ridout, Adrian Cruft, Judith Weir, Christopher Brown and Ruth Byrchmore.
The company appeared at major British festivals: Edinburgh (1979), the City of London, Aldeburgh and Bath; as well as in Lisbon and Oporto (1974), Venice (1980), Schwetzingen (1976) and Singapore.
[8] The effective closure of Kent Opera in 1989 due to the withdrawal of all funding from the Arts Council was a controversial decision which generated protest.
When another proposal to cut the company was put forward in December 1989, Robert Ponsonby resigned from the music panel, performances at Covent Garden were cancelled and commissions from Michael Berkeley and Peter Maxwell Davies stopped.