Opera San José has announced that it has lost its grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The NEA announced on Friday, May 2, that it was updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects “that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity” as prioritized by President Donald Trump. As such, Opera San José will no longer have access to the $25,000 that the NEA had awarded it to support its new production of “Zorro.” The opera opened in April and ran through May 4 and was presented in collaboration with Kentucky Opera and Arizona Opera. Opera San José was one of 37 recipients of the NEA grant for “Grants for Arts Projects – Opera,” which totaled $1,070,000 for these organizations.

In a statement, Shawna Lucey, CEO/General Director of Opera San José said, “On Friday, May 2, at 5:45pm, just as we were opening the historic California Theatre for our final weekend of performances of the opera ‘Zorro,’ we received an email telling us our grant for this production had been withdrawn.  We are devastated. What makes this particularly ironic is the notification that the ‘NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate … ‘Hispanic Serving Institutions.’ Our production of ‘Zorro’ was sung in Spanish and English, and like all our operas, features both English and Spanish supertitles. For some years now, Opera San José has prioritized accessibility to its Hispanic community with bilingual supertitles. We have also focused on presenting operas that speak to that community, such as ‘Zorro,’ which tells the story of colonial California and its struggle towards independence from Spanish rule. Our final performance of ‘Zorro’ concluded on Sunday, May 4.  We have now turned our attention to finding ways to cover this shortfall.”

This is the latest organization to lose funding from the NEA after Trump proposed to cut funding. As a result, the NEA sent out an email stating that it would be “updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”

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