The Wolf Trap Company continued to refine and reinvent itself in the summer of 1976. There was no production at the Madeira School, but young artists were increasingly featured in the productions at the Filene Center, singing all supporting roles in La traviata and all featured roles except Oberon and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Company’s 16 singers were also featured in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (the latter with the National Symphony Orchestra.) They also sang with the NSO in a concert commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Wagner’s Ring.
In the Centerlines playbill that summer, the WTC is described as “an advanced resident company combining 
intensive training and performing opportunities of maximum scope and challenge.” The Company had been founded just five years earlier as a vehicle to provide apprenticeship experiences to singers who were making a decision regarding a commitment to a professional career. By 1976, John Moriarty had begun to pare the size of the roster in order to “assure all members a full professional participation in all works presented.” This was a huge step toward what would become Wolf Trap Opera in the 21st century.
Members of the 1976 Wolf Trap Company
Rockwell Blake
John Cheek
Christopher Deane
Stephen Dickson
Janice Hall
Keith Kibler
Roger Lucas
James Maddalena
Robert Orth
Evelyn Petros
Fredda Rakusin
Neil Rosenshein
Susan Smith
Patricia Lynne Stone
Peter Strummer
Christine Whittlesey
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