 The American impulse to excel in the arts was stimulated in the late 1950s in part by Soviet triumphalism.This was part of the backdrop to the founding of the Chaminade Opera Group, but the very few women who conducted opera in America in the 1950s faced other challenges that were more immediate, and more cumbersome.In 1958, a year before the founding of the company, Mrs Pettitt directed a limited production of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" at a small venue, with double piano accompaniment instead of orchestra.