From the very beginnings of Intimate Opera Group in 1957 when the camaraderie of Putting on Opera kept a mob of dedicated amateurs operating on no money and gallons of goodwill, to the first professional New Opera South Australia in 1973 with staff and crews revelling like hippies in scungy offices, mending and making do and mounting many amazing productions, to 1976 and a secure statutory authority that has maintained the outstanding record of its predecessors - it’s all - well, nearly all - here in State of Opera. Elizabeth Silsbury chronicles the last 43 years of this nation’s most adventurous, most audacious, and for many, most admired, performing arts company, The State Opera of South Australia.