[5] The company was founded in the late 1970s by opera tenor Garðar Cortes,[6][7] father of tenor Garðar Thór Cortes.
He remained artistic director until Ólöf Kolbrún Harðardóttir, also an opera singer, took over in 1992.
[8][9] Steinunn Birna Ragnarsdóttir was appointed the new director of the company in April 2015.
[12] Since then, it has performed classics by Mozart, Rossini, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini and others.
For the first 30 years of its existence, the organization performed in the cinema Gamla Bíó [is] on Ingólfsstræti in downtown Reykjavík.