The chairman of Dicapo Opera Theatre, Dr. William Priester, discovered the company by walking past its banner outside St. Jean Baptiste Church. “I work across the street,” the cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital said at the theater’s season-opening gala on Thursday. “I’ve always loved opera, but I was getting tired of the Met. So I went to a performance. That was 15 years ago.”

In the basement of the church he found a 220-seat theater created by the company’s founder, contractor-cum-opera impresario Michael Capasso. But it neither looked nor sounded like basement opera. The theater boasts an orchestra pit that accommodates 20 to 30 musicians and up-close views of the stage from every seat, not to mention an elegant lobby with hand-painted decoration.

The night of the gala, the full house had an up-close view of Charles Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette.” The opera has two more performances on October 12 and 14.

“You see the action, you’re there,” Dr. Priester said before congratulating the singer who played Juliette, Kristin Sampson, who was walking past on a sort of victory lap at the dinner following the performance.

Dicapo bills itself as New York’s “third opera company,” with the mission of showcasing young talent in a full season of productions including classical and 20th-century opera. It has an annual budget of $1 million, with revenue coming from private donations, ticket sales, theater rentals, and scenery and costume rentals. The gala raised $75,000.

Reacting to the appointment of new heads with a fresh vision at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, in May Mr. Capasso appointed the opera composer Tobias Picker as artistic adviser. Mr. Picker’s work includes a commission from the city of New York in honor of the Brooklyn Bridge’s centennial and a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, “An American Tragedy,” based on the novel of the same name by Theodore Dreiser.

They have big ideas.

“I want to see Dicapo Opera Theatre become world famous and make a big mark, so people in Paris say, ‘Oh you must go to Dicapo,'” Mr. Capasso said.

“It takes a long time to change. But the singers love to do new things,” Mr. Picker said, mentioning that his collaboration will include work on his own compositions as well as commissions and works that have never been performed in this country. This season, a new song by Mr. Picker will have its world premiere at Dicapo Opera Theatre onFebruary2. A chamber version of his opera “Thérèse Raquin,” based on the novel by Emile Zola, had its New York premiere at Dicapo in February.

The faces of the artists have changed frequently in the company’s 26 years. What has not changed is Mr. Capasso’s passion for opera and for nurturing talent.

“This season 25 of my artists are performing at City Opera,” Mr. Capasso said during dinner with a bravado matching the red meat on his plate.

The heart of any performance at Dicapo Opera Theatre are the resident artists who receive coaching and performance exposure throughout a season, culminating in a rigorous master class meant to prepare them for auditions with larger companies. Most of the artists have other jobs to pay the bills. “It’s a great chance to be in the public eye. You learn how to handle yourself,” a first-year resident artist, tenor Michael Boley, said.

“I think Michael gives young singers the greatest possible opportunity they could ask for in their career,” veteran soprano Licia Albanese, who sang the title role of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” 72 times at the Met between 1940 and 1965, said.

Working in a smaller company can be more work for the singers, though. “Here you have to be more on your game. In a smaller company everyone leans on each other,” Martin Fisher, who plays Gregorio in “Roméo et Juliette” and just finished performing in “Margaret Garner” at City Opera, said.

The artists develop camaraderie and add flavor to the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the theater is situated. They can often be found at SoupBurg on Lexington Avenue and 76th Street. And when they suffer from heartbreak, they can always seek advice from the company’s chairman, the cardiologist Dr. Priester.

agordon@nysun.com