Kentucky Opera
non-profit organization in the USA
The Kentucky Opera is an American opera company based in Louisville, Kentucky. The company is resident at the Brown Theatre, as part of Kentucky Performing Arts. The Louisville Orchestra is the accompanying orchestra for the company.
Moritz von Bomhard founded the company in 1952 as the State Opera of Kentucky. The company performed in the Columbia Auditorium until 1964, when they moved to the Macauley Theater (now called the Brown Theatre). Bomhard served as general director of the company until his 1982 retirement. Thomson Smillie succeeded Bomhard as general director, and during his tenure, the company began to give some performances at Whitney Hall in 1984. Smillie was general director until 1997. In 1998, Deborah Sandler became the company's general director. During her tenure, the company moved all of its productions to Whitney Hall.
“Kentucky Opera” enters the record as non-profit organization in the USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kentucky, Opera and non-profit can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3195326. VIAF identifies the subject as 314902482. The Library of Congress control number is no2015018794. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1964, 1982 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kentucky Opera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.