San Diego Opera (SDO) is a widely respected member of the international opera community and an invaluable cultural resource to the San Diego region. San Diego Opera Association was incorporated in 1965 as a producing company and presented its first staging of La Bohème in the newly opened San Diego Civic Theatre. Led since 2015 by General Director David Bennett, the Company has embarked on a series of community-based initiatives, free public performances, and family-friendly operas with world-renowned opera stars to better serve the diverse San Diego region. In 2016, the Company premiered its wildly popular dētour Series, which explores the expressive nature of opera with the potency of intimate theater.

SDO’s commitment to providing a valuable artistic service to our community extends to our offstage work including: Words and Music, an artist residency program that serves hundreds of San Diego youth with in-school, after-school, and summer arts instruction; Opera Hack, a hackathon that brings together leaders in the arts and technology to improve the production and performance of opera; an Artist-in-Residence program where residents of City Heights and San Ysidro create artistic works together that tell their stories, and; an Opera en Español initiative dedicated to building partnerships with arts organizations and artists in Mexico and the U.S. and commissioning, producing, and presenting Spanish-language opera.