To outsiders, Cincinnati doesn’t have a reputation as a hotbed of opera. Yet Cincinnati Opera—founded in 1920—is the second oldest company in the United States. Only New York’s venerable Met (1880) has a longer pedigree. Renata Scotto made her American debut here, in 1978. Artistic director Evans Mirageas was tabbed as one of the 25 most powerful names in American Opera by Opera News. In recent years it’s commissioned two original works: Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner (2005) and Adolphus Hailstork’sRise for Freedom (2007), with a third penciled in for 2011. And it’s achieved a rarity among American opera companies: finishing in the black every year for more than two decades.

One reason for this financial success is the annual format: a highly concentrated three- or four-production summer opera festival that spans June and July. Big names and a lively combination of established standards and regional premieres keep the turnstiles humming.

The company’s Opera IdolTM Cincinnati attracted more than 160 hopeful amateur singers when it premiered in 2009. With the group winnowed down to six finalists, more than 10,000 fans cast votes.