Passage: Productions during the 1980s included the company's first presentations of Pelléas and Mélisande (1981), Parsifal (1986) and Billy Budd (1988). 1980s productions that remained in the repertory for many years included Xerxes directed by Hytner, and Rigoletto and The Mikado directed by Jonathan Miller. In 1984 ENO toured the United States; the travelling company, led by Elder, consisted of 360 people; they performed Gloriana, War and Peace, The Turn of the Screw, Rigoletto and Patience. This was the first British company to be invited to appear at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where Patience received a standing ovation and Miller's production of Rigoletto, depicting the characters as mafiosi, was greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and booing. In 1990 ENO was the first major foreign opera company to tour the Soviet Union, performing the Miller production of The Turn of the Screw, Pountney's production of Macbeth, and Hytner's much-revived Xerxes.The 'Powerhouse' era ended in 1992, when all three of the triumvirate left at the same time. The new general director was Dennis Marks, formerly head of music programmes at the BBC, and the new music director was Sian Edwards. Pountney's post of director of productions was not filled. Marks, inheriting a large financial deficit from his predecessors, worked to restore the company's finances, concentrating on restoring ticket sales to sustainable levels. A new production by Miller of Der Rosenkavalier was a critical and financial success, as was a staging of Massenet's Don Quixote, described by the critic Hugh Canning as "the kind of old-fashioned theatre magic which the hair-shirted Powerhouse regime despised".Marks was obliged to spend much time and effort in securing the funding for an essential restoration of the Coliseum, a condition on which ENO had acquired the freehold of the theatre in 1992. At the same time the Arts Council was contemplating a cut in the number of opera performances in London, at the expense of ENO, rather than Covent Garden. By increasing ticket sales in successive years, Marks demonstrated that the Arts Council's proposition was unrealistic. After what The Independent described as "a sustained period of criticism and sniping at the ENO by music critics", Edwards resigned as music director at the end of 1995. Paul Daniel became ENO's next music director. In 1997, Marks resigned. No official reason was announced, but one report stated that he and the ENO board had disagreed about his plans to move the company from the Coliseum to a purpose-built new home. Daniel took over the management of the company until a new general director was appointed.Daniel inherited from Marks a company thriving artistically and financially. The 1997–1998 season played to 75 per cent capacity and made a surplus of £150,000. Daniel led the campaign against yet another proposal to merge Covent Garden and ENO, which was rapidly abandoned. In 1998 Nicholas Payne, director of opera at Covent Garden, was appointed as ENO's general director. Productions in the 1990s included the company's first stagings of Beatrice and Benedict (1990), Wozzeck (1990), Jenůfa (1994), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1995), Die Soldaten (1996), and Dialogues of the Carmelites (1999). Co-productions, enabling opera houses to share the costs of joint enterprises, became important in this decade.  In 1993 ENO and Welsh National Opera collaborated on productions of Don Pasquale, Ariodante and The Two Widows.
Output: What play was produced by the company that was the first British company to be invited to appear at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1999?