In his first year there, he staged new productions of Amahl and the Night Visitors, La traviata, Don Pasquale, and Samson et Dalila.
Among his productions available on DVD, are La fille du régiment (with Beverly Sills, 1974) and L'africaine (with Shirley Verrett and Plácido Domingo, 1988).
[5] Mansouri led the company in commissioning several new works which have received critical acclaim, including John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer (1992), Conrad Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons (Fall 1994), Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk (1996) (co-commissioned with Houston Grand Opera and New York City Opera), André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire (Fall 1998), and Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking (Fall 2000).
Towards the end of the 2001 season, Mansouri announced his resignation and was succeeded by Pamela Rosenberg, formerly of the Stuttgart Opera.
He died at home in Pacific Heights area of San Francisco and survived by his wife Marjorie Thompson and daughter, Shireen.