Pre-season ticket sales are up 400 percent for the professional opera company, says founding director Steffanie Pearce. And more corporate sponsors are showing interest in supporting its shows.

Even more importantly, Opera Naples has passed its crucial second season — that shaky time where many opera companies crash and burn. And that opens them up to all sorts of grants and a more secure future.

Professional opera seems to have found a warm home in Southwest Florida.

"If we make it through this year," Pearce says, "then we're here to stay."

Opera Naples opens this season with its first outdoors concert at Naples' Cambier Park. The show cherry-picks some of the best-known songs from the company's three operas for 2007-08: the grand opera "La Traviata," the family-friendly "Elixir of Love" and Mozart's risque comedy "Cosi Fan Tutte" (loosely translated to "They're All Like That").

The company bought that last production — including its sets, costumes and performers — after its well-received staging at this summer's Tanglewood Festival in Boston. That production featured many key figures from The Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

It'll be a terrific and unusual way to cap the 2007-08 season, Pearce says.

This version of "Cosi Fan Tutte" is updated to modern South Beach. "It's a farce," Pearce says. "Pampered airheads succumb to temptation.

"Nobody has ever seen anything quite like this here."

Opera fans will get a preview of that and more at the Cambier Park concert.

Opera Naples chose the park for its strategic location in downtown Naples. People will see the black-tie performance and perhaps go see one of the fully staged shows later.

The concert includes a full orchestra, the Opera Naples Chorus and nationally known soloists Pearce, Susana Diaz, Leah Summers, Benjamin Warchawski and Nelson Martinez.

It should be a big spectacle, Pearce says. "There will be about 70 people on stage."

This season's full operas have all been scheduled for the height of tourist season. Except for the Cambier Park concert, all the shows are scheduled between January and April.

Opera Naples learned its lesson from last year, when it staged the Christmas opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors" in November, Pearce says. The shows sold poorly — especially the ones in Fort Myers — and Opera Naples had to do some belt tightening for the rest of the season.

Three months later, "Madama Butterfly" in Naples sold out both shows. So that told them something — stick to tourist season and stick to Naples.

Now all three of the season's shows will appear from January through April. And they'll stay in Naples. But organizers say they plan to return to Fort Myers for a second try — when the company is better established and financially secure.

They're getting there.

Pearce says she's happy to see pre-season ticket sales have gone up 400 percent. "I think that's a pretty good sign of people's level of satisfaction with what they've seen."

On top of everything else, the group is getting better organized, says Jerry Goldberg, vice president of Opera Naples' board of directors.

Before, the group was managed mostly by volunteers. Now there are professional bookkeepers and consultants on board, and they've been spending more time and detail on solid budgeting.

"We're operating in a much more professional and organized manner," Goldberg says. "That will help with our success this year."

Opera Naples has a budget of about $800,000, and each opera costs about $150,000 to stage, Goldberg says. That includes costumes and the cost of the musical talent.

The rest of the budget goes toward staff, advertising, Opera Naples' educational programs and other expenses.

All in all, things are looking good for Opera Naples, Goldberg says. And they'll probably keep getting better.

"I think we're past the point where we've proven our long-term ability," he says. "I think things are going well, and so far we've been having great success. I'm very pleased."