İstanbul Devlet Opera ve Balesi

One of the six provincial directorates of Turkey's State Opera and Ballet, the general directorate created under law 1309 in 1970 within what is now the ministry of culture and tourism, alongside Ankara, İzmir, Mersin, Antalya and Samsun. Its Istanbul predecessor, the city opera, was already staging Tosca in 1960 and had moved into the Kültür Sarayı by 1969. Beside its own seasons the company mounts the International Istanbul Opera Festival.