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“It was stunning,� Stallard said Monday. “We saw that show and we had a glimpse of the future and how increasingly exciting ... it is going forward. We just wanted to be a part of that.�

Last week, Stallard and his wife, Marlu Allan, donated $1 million to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera to support bringing similarly exciting new works to the stage. It is one of the largest individual gifts in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera’s 46-year history, officials said.

“It’s a pretty inspiring gift,� said General Director Joseph Specter, who said the money will help “to make sure that we really deepen our commitment to presenting stories that resonate with the community.�

“Riders,â€� which ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera commissioned and world-premiered, was the final installment in the five-year ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Bold initiative to present regionally relevant works. Others included the mariachi opera “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon)â€� in 2014 and Emmerich Kálmán’s “ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Ladyâ€� in 2015.

“Ridersâ€� struck an interesting chord. Each of the two performances in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in late February and the three in Phoenix in early March were nearly sold out; a line of people showed up at the box office on the night of the final show to see if people had returned unused tickets, Specter said.

“Those tickets were immediately snapped up,� he said. “That kind of excitement and, dare I say, demand is not always built into our product.�

Single ticket sales for “Ridersâ€� outpaced the hugely popular “Carmenâ€� from the 2015-16 season, $390,934 to $373,466. It was the highest-grossing single ticket sales for an ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera production in a dozen years, Specter said.

More importantly, however, was that many of the folks in the audience were non-opera fans, people experiencing the art form for the first time. That’s largely what inspired Stallard and Allan to donate $1 million.

“Even ‘Cinderella,’ this last show, it looked like DisneyWorld with all the kids. That’s the future audiences,â€� Stallard said. “We need to be relevant to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and Phoenix. We were interested more than anything in growing and supporting the future of the company.â€�

Stallard and Allan are relative newcomers to opera. They moved to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in 2002 from Sacramento, where they rarely if ever attended opera in neighboring San Francisco. The couple’s careers — she was a pioneer in fiber optic storage interconnects and he spent 34 years with Hewlitt Packard, retiring in 2009 as a global senior vice president — kept them busy, Stallard said.

They discovered ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera and were immediately hooked. They bought season tickets, then started supporting ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Opera’s costume department.

In 2014, Stallard, who now lives in Payson, joined the Board of Directors; he’s spent the past two years as its treasurer and was involved in the company’s ongoing strategic planning to create a sustainable business model for the future.

A large part of that future, he said, lies in creating interest beyond the traditional opera audiences.

“We just love the repertoire and the classics and increasingly the newer works they are bringing into the fold,� he said. “It’s fun for us to see new works, and it’s appealing to new audiences.�