Connecticut Opera
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Connecticut Opera is a professional opera company based in Hartford, Connecticut and is a member of OPERA America. The company presents three fully stage opera productions during an annual season. The company was founded in 1942 under the directorship of Frank Pandolfi and is the sixth oldest professional opera company in the United States. Pandolfi served as General Manager of the company for 32 years and brought most of the major international opera stars of that time to Hartford.
After Pandolfi left the company, Connecticut Opera shifted directions choosing to away from the star system towards hiring young and talented artists on the rise. The company also became highly interested in cutting edge theatrical sets, lighting, costumes and other technical areas of theater before such a move became in vogue within the opera world. In the mid-seventies, the company founded Opera Express, an award-winning touring company that focuses on bringing operatic programs to more than 3 million youths, senior and disadvantaged citizens in this region. During the early 1980's, The Connecticut Opera received national and international recognition through pioneer arena productions of Aïda and Turandot.
In the spring of 1999, the Board of Trustees embarked on an aggressive path of growth and re-invention for the company. This change in direction was marked by a change in management structure – from that of a single General Director to a management team headed by General and Artistic Director Willie Anthony Waters, and Managing Director Maria Levy, a position now held by Linda Jackson, dividing the artistic and administrative activities of the company.[1]
