Arizona Opera has signed on one of the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurers to a four-year deal as a season title sponsor, a move that will effectively erase the biggest debt from the company’s longterm deficit.

Arizona Opera has had a $1.6 million revolving line of credit with CopperPoint Mutual﻿, formerly SCF Arizona, since 2007. At the end of the four-year deal, which runs through the 2017-18 season, that debt will be erased. ﻿ Under the agreement, CopperPoint will appear in all marketing materials for the opera’s seasons, including the season brochures.

CopperPoint, the state’s oldest and largest workers’ compensation insurer, went private and changed its name from SCF in December.

Arizona Opera has been paying the debt service to its CopperPoint line of credit, but little else over the past several years. The nonprofit, which mounts productions in Tucson and Phoenix, had $3.2 million in long-term debt when Ryan Taylor﻿ took office last spring, following Scott Altman‘s﻿ abrupt departure.

In May, Taylor and the opera’s board of directors launched an emergency fundraising campaign dubbed “Million Dollar May.” Over six weeks, the company raised $1 million in donations, which erased a third of the company’s deficit.