Opera Cleveland Opera Cleveland Cleveland Opera was incorporated by David Bamberger, Carola Bamberger, and John D. Heavenrich in March 1976 and presented its first season in October and November of that year with sold-out productions of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and Rossini's "The Barber of Seville". By 1984, it had become the resident opera company at Playhouse Square, with performances at the State Theater. The company played an integral part in the revitalization of Cleveland's historic Cleveland Theater District and was a leader in the movement to make theaters accessible to the physically challenged. There was considerable overlap between the orchestra personnel of
Samuel Barber Heinsheimer, as an executive at G. Schirmer, would have been unlikely to have allowed Barber into the Schirmer offices to watch him "rip apart the music that his company had invested money in publishing". In 1943, Barber and Menotti purchased a house in Mount Kisco, New York. Barber won the Pulitzer Prize twice: in 1958 for his first opera "Vanessa," and in 1963 for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Barber spent many years in isolation after the harsh rejection of his third opera "Antony and Cleopatra". He suffered from depression, and was also beset by alcoholism. The opera was