Washington Concert Opera is a professional opera company located in Washington, D.C. in the United States which presents operas in a concert format with full orchestra and chorus. WCO's distinctive repertoire consists of operas which either have not been presented recently in the Washington area, or are infrequently performed anywhere, or which represent opportunities to showcase artists.
Typically, WCO presents two operas each season, one each in the autumn and spring, in Lisner Auditorium located on the campus of the George Washington University. During the early 2000s, the company presented operas in the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall, but with rather disastrous economic consequences:
- We came perilously close to losing the Washington Concert Opera two summers ago. The troupe, which has presented concert performances of rare and unusual operas here since 1986, had made an ambitious but prohibitively expensive move to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and suddenly realized it was going broke, with an annual deficit that had climbed to $200,000.[1]
As of the 2005 season, WCO returned to the Lisner Auditorium.
- ^ Tim Page, "Pieces Come Together For 'Luisa Miller'", The Washington Post, June 7, 2005