Just four years after Seattle, its larger neighbor to the north, opera came to the City of Destiny as the Tacoma Opera Society presented Die Fledermaus at Pacific Lutheran University. After initial success, the Society fell on hard times. In the early 1980s it morphed into the broader-based Tacoma Opera and moved to the newly opened Broadway Performing Arts Center, where it has become a fixture.

Employing primarily singers from the Pacific Northwest, Tacoma Opera offers a three-opera season in three intimate settings. Two larger operas (one typically in the 1186-seat Pantages Theatre and the other at the 738-seat Rialto) sandwich the company’s Young Artist Showcase in the 302-seat Theatre on the Square, featuring the cream of the local talent crop in one-act operas.

Evidence of the company’s high artistic standards came when regular conductor Sara Jobin scored a 2010 Grammy nomination for her Volpone with Wolf Trap Opera. At the same time Tacoma Opera received a prestigious Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

To nurture future audiences, Tacoma Opera offers low-cost student group tickets to dress rehearsals and an annual opera class for teachers that includes a model lesson plan.