OperaUpClose will be part of the Arts Council England National Funding Portfolio starting in the Spring of 2023.

The company’s 2023 season will kick off with a new version of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman,” as well as development and community outreach revolving around “Riders to the Sea” by Vaughan Williams.

The company also aims to develop a paid Young Associate Artist program in partnership with such organizations as MAST and Southampton University.

“We are enormously grateful that Arts Council England has decided to regularly fund OperaUpClose as a National Portfolio Organisation,” said Artistic Director Flora McIntosh in an official press statement. “This supports a new and transformational phase in the development of OperaUpClose as we embed as the only resident Opera Company in the South West. From our new home at the brilliant and diverse cultural hub of MAST, Southampton, and with the support of Arts Council England, we are now in a unique position to have both local and national impact, developing and expanding our work as an innovative force in UK opera.”

In addition to including new companies in its portfolio, the Arts Council England cut its support for other organizations, including the English National Opera, which recently announced that it would be leaving London.