Sarasota Opera Winter Opera Festival in February and March, usually offering four fully staged operas with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. The repertoire includes standard works as well as lesser known operas. In March 2008, the Sarasota Opera House reopened after a $20 million renovation with Verdi's "Rigoletto", and in the same year, the company added its first fully staged fall production, Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" bringing the number of operas presented in a season to five. For the most part, the Fall operas have been popular favourites, but in 2012, it presented Daron Hagen's world premiere opera, "Little Nemo in Slumberland".
The Barber of Seville (1944 film) is lifted from Woody's first starring appearance in the 1941 cartoon "Woody Woodpecker", in which Woody was voiced by Mel Blanc. Ben Hardaway, also the co-storyman on "Barber of Seville", provides Woody's voice for the first time (replacing Kent Rogers, who was killed in a World War II plane crash three months after this short's release), and Lee Sweetland performs as Woody's singing voice. Hardaway would become Woody's sole speaking voice for the remainder of the decade. Finally, "The Barber of Seville" was the first Woody cartoon directed by veteran animator James "Shamus" Culhane, who had been working on Lantz's