General director David Gockley, who departs at the end of the year to become general director of the San Francisco Opera, told the paper that balancing the company's budget and still providing "good product that's typical of us" was a "Herculean" job.

Other changes include fewer performances and the shift of opening night from Friday to Saturday.

The season features Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov; Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro; the Jonathan Miller production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale; Puccini's Manon Lescaut, starring Karita Mattila; Bizet's Carmen; and Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea, with Nathan Gunn, Susan Graham, William Burden, and Frederica von Stade.

Audra McDonald will sing in a concert featuring Poulenc's La Voix humaine and a new work by Michael John La Chiusa.