David Devan kept the doors open at Opera Philadelphia. And in an era like this, that is a very big deal.

If there’s one Philadelphia arts group that’s won recognition for innovating its way to success, it’s Opera Philadelphia. For more than a decade the company has projected the image of an enterprise on the move, embracing corporate tools like sophisticated market research and the language of venture capital to support a four-century-old art form.

The approach has brought international prizes to the company and some great press for the city.

So it’s hard to reconcile Opera Philadelphia’s bold image with its current difficulties, which include a shrinking budget and the mothballing (at least for the 2024-25 season) of an annual festival that became the company’s great distinguishing feature.

If Opera Philadelphia was the definition of success and it couldn’t achieve stability, who can?

And if the forward-looking former general director and president David B. Devan — who finished up his tenure May 31 — wasn’t able to bring funders and audiences along on a new model for opera after 13-plus years at the helm, what then?

Yes, COVID happened. But the pandemic simply sped up demographic trends already underway. Opera Philadelphia faces the same difficult math today it would have soon faced: it’s increasingly tough to assemble a large audience for traditional works in the opera canon, while audiences who may be interested in new works don’t show up in big numbers or commit to subscriptions the way the base once did.

Neither demographic factor was within Devan’s control to alter, of course. And here’s another one: opera doesn’t have the stars it once did. Who is the Pavarotti of today? Or our Jessye Norman? Those names used to be all you’d need to sell tickets. Opera singers once spilled over into TV talk shows, commercials, and other pop-culture outlets. Today, they (can we still call them stars?) exist in a discrete subculture.

And yet in many ways, the chipper, energetic Devan has more firmly connected opera to the general culture of the time than his recent predecessors. Drag queens regularly appear in shows and at social events. Black professionals have assumed major roles in the company both onstage and in the front office. Opera Philadelphia has brought opera to nontraditional venues like TLA on South Street and city parks.

And through an embrace of new works, Devan has infused the company with a certain sense of cool. But did it grow too cool for Philadelphia?

Devan tried to grow the audience by moving the repertoire from opera to operatic. The company presented fewer traditional main stage works and more pieces that were vocal and theatrical, like The Raven, the Toshio Hosokawa work at the Miller Theater in the O22 festival. Edgy, but not traditional opera.

The Raven sold out four nights. But capacity for the production was tiny — not the full Miller Theater, but just 220 seats onstage.

What’s important to realize is that all arts groups grow relationships with specific audiences over time. The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s listeners have been to enough thrilling and profound concerts that even when they see a piece or artist on a forthcoming program they don’t know, they trust that the chances are pretty good they’ll be glad they were there. And in the recent past, Opera Philadelphia has projected its most progressive side, perhaps edging out its reputation for doing traditional opera well.

Opera Philadelphia, it must also be said, hasn’t always produced traditional opera at the highest level. I found the sets of the company’s recent Madame Butterfly so sparse as to be depressing. Opera doesn’t always have to be a spectacle, but when it is, it’s an almost spiritual experience. Last season’s La bohème didn’t have the spectacle, and it didn’t have uniformly great voices, either.

Significantly, the titles are among the most popular in the repertoire, and both operas sold exceedingly well.

What happens when Opera Philadelphia is firing on all cylinders? Last season’s Simon Boccanegra could not have been more wonderful — the cast, the visuals, the orchestra, and conductor Corrado Rovaris. And yet the Academy of Music was filled only halfway.

It’s not one of Verdi’s big titles, and that was no doubt part of it. But it’s also possible that a certain portion of the opera-loving public doesn’t perceive Opera Philadelphia as a first-tier company. Leaders should think of this as an opportunity — to invest energy and resources in high quality productions of standard repertoire. Philadelphians lean traditional. Will new leader Anthony Roth Costanzo get that?

The Devan era had its shortcomings. The choice of composers for new works was sometimes less ambitious than it could have been. And the company has never come up with a main stage production geared toward children — some major, lavish, individualistic production with great music that would awaken new generations to the art form. In ballet, that gateway piece is The Nutcracker. Opera Philadelphia has produced no fabulous new Hansel and Gretel, no fantastical abridged production of The Magic Flute. That was a missed opportunity.

But these points shouldn’t overshadow Devan’s central accomplishment: He took an undernourished, traditional opera company, set in motion a period of artistic experimentation and financial growth, learned some important lessons, got through the pandemic, and delivered it all to his successor in one piece.

And he did this while some deep-pocketed Philadelphians were writing big checks to the Metropolitan Opera.

The reigning axiom in the arts today is that groups just need to find a sustainable business model. But Opera Philadelphia has shown us that there’s no such destination. Audience habits and society in general are changing so quickly that the only thing groups can do is to keep evolving.

That’s the business model in the arts: invest, experiment, learn, invest again. It’s exactly what David Devan did day in and day out for more than 13 years. He kept it all going. And that is quite a lot.