The Omaha Civic Opera Society was founded to meet two needs in the community:
- To Provide quality opera entertainment through a community-wide organization
- To Provide an operatic showcase for the promising vocal talent in this region
The original directors of the corporation were Francis P. Matthews, Henry E. Pusch, Homer C. Rogers, Lloyd E. Skinner (President), and Richard Valente.
From the beginning, the Omaha Civic Opera Society, now Opera Omaha, was instilled with a spirit of adventure; it was not merely a grand opera company. In the Civic Opera Society’s first year, 1958-1959, along with its premiere production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in the Joslyn Art Museum Concert Hall, additional performances followed: Puccini’s Tosca, held at Boys Town, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, at Ak-Sar-Ben, and Englebert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at Technical High School.