The San Diego Opera (SDO) is a professional opera company in San Diego, California. San Diego Opera Guild was founded in 1950 to present San Francisco Opera productions in the San Diego community. San Diego Opera Association was incorporated in 1965 as a producing company and presented its first staging of La bohème in the San Diego Civic Theatre. It is a member of the professional association OPERA America, which ranked it among the top ten opera companies in the United States. [1]
Until the 2008 recession, it presented five operas each season; in 2008 this was reduced to four productions, scheduled from January to April. In March 2014 the opera board announced that the 2014 season would be its last,[2] but this decision was later rescinded by the company's board of directors, and a cut down version of the already planned 2015 season was announced, reducing the number of titles from four to three.[3] David Bennett of the Gotham Chamber Opera was hired as general director.