T: I had been on the board of the symphony ever since it was resurrected in 1949. We
 used to have one of these concerts where you have some opera stars come down and
 sing a few arias, then we had them sing more arias, and finally we got to the point
 to where we began producing an opera. Then, we had a junior league and other
 groups help for a couple of years, but there was a group of ladies who ran it. Then,
 the time came that they wanted to have their own opera and not be a subsidiary to
 the Florida Symphony. The Florida Symphony voted to do it. I particularly spoke
 in favor of it and voted for it, because I thought if these women felt it was their own
 organization, they would work a great deal harder for it, and it would be a lot better
 organization. And I think that is the way it turned out. The opera was then run all
 by women; several of them did the professional jobs that you normally hire, and by
 doing most of the work themselves they had a very low administrative cost. And by
 running it very carefully and not having too many operas, they were able to turn out
 good operas and stay in the black. After a number of years, they decided to bring
 some men on to the board and I was one of the first ones brought on. Then, after
 I had been on about a year these ladies who had been running it decided that they
 could not handle it without some help, and so they employed a manager. For two,
 three, or four years, we had one rather unsuccessful manager after another. In fact,
 I think that the opera suffered because of the managers that it had.

S: Yes, one in particular was mentioned in this Louis Roney article of 1984 (Outlook,
 October 18, 1984). I believe it was Dwight Bowes who was the least successful of
 your managers, to say the least.

T: Well, yes, I would not want to say just what was weak about them, but the fact is that
 the opera was not managed very well for one reason or another. But, anyway, after
 a series of managers, it now has Robert Swedberg, whom I consider an excellent
 person.

S: Right. I know him and I have worked with his wife Melissa in music education.
 They are fine.

T: I think he is doing an excellent job.

S: I think so. You mentioned the number of concerts being expanded and that there
 is always a risk you take with the budget when you decided to put on another opera
 in the season.

T: Yes.

S: Is there a formula you think for taking those types of risks?

T: No, but the history of the opera, a good deal of the time, was a case where in
 planning a budget for the coming year, the budget was balanced by having overly

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