(Photograph by James Bellorini) The Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO) will cut 64 roles as the Covent Garden institution moves to address long-term financial sustainability. Per reports from The Stage, the reductions amount to roughly five percent of the organization’s current workforce of 1,169 staff. Nine of the cuts will involve compulsory redundancies, with the remainder expected to come from {…}
The Royal Ballet and Opera has announced its 2026-27 Cinema Season. Here are the opera performances, including a collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen lead Verdi’s “Macbeth” in a new Metropolitan Opera production directed by Louisa Proske and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with Freddie De Tommaso and Ryan Speedo Green. (UK only) Cinema Date: Oct. 20, {…}
(Photo: ©2026 Tristram Kenton) If you have ever visited to the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten lived, and which inspired his 1945 opera “Peter Grimes” – based on George Crabbe’s poem “The Borough” – then you will surely remember the remarkable views from the sea front: vast, empty skies, sunlight blazing on the water like a purifying {…}
The Royal Ballet and Opera will unveil new stage curtains at a landmark Gala performance on May 14, 2026. The event will bring together both companies alongside the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Royal Opera Chorus, and the Jette Parker Artists. The outgoing curtains, installed in 1997, served through nearly three decades and tens of thousands of performances. {…}
(Credit: ©2026 Marc Brenner) “There’s a storm brewing…it’s going to get darker,” observes assassin Sparafucile. How right he is! Moments later, he’s stuffing the pure and innocent, murdered Gilda into a body bag downstairs while his sister is gyrating on top of the dastardly Duke of Mantua upstairs; pretty much as dark as it gets. ‘Manosphere’ and ‘Toxic Masculinity’ are the {…}
A new organization representing the UK’s opera sector, the UK Opera Association (UKOA), has officially launched, uniting 20 founding companies to advocate for opera’s future and strengthen its presence across the country. UKOA, which was founded by Birmingham Opera Company, British Youth Opera, Buxton International Festival, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Garsington Opera, The Grange Festival, Glyndebourne, Longborough Festival {…}
(The Royal Opera ©2025 Marc Brenner) By the time I got to the Royal Opera and Ballet’s new production of “Tosca” at the end of September, most of the hubbub had died down. The protests around Netrebko’s performance had withered, and her performance was acclaimed – the diva triumphant in the face of politics. So too had dissolved important questions {…}
(Credit: Tristram Kenton) It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. No, really. Director Stefan Herheim employs a combination of both smoke and mirrors on a seemingly ever-revolving, ever-evolving stage setting of grandiose balconies, monumental set pieces, and athletic ballerinas, whose inclusion is frequent enough to make the casual observer question whether this is an opera or a ballet. In fact, {…}
(Credit Vladimir Shirokov) As Anna Netrebko prepares her return to the Royal Ballet and Opera, MPs and Ukrainian artists have signed a letter against the soprano’s appearances. In a letter sent to the Guardian, the artists and MP claim that Netrebko is “a symbol of cultural propaganda for a regime responsible for war crimes.” They also question if the “Royal {…}
The Royal Ballet & Opera House Artistic Director, Oliver Mears, is speaking out about the Palestinian protest on July 19 after he attempted to grab a Palestinian flag being unfurled by an actor during the curtain call. In a recent internal email to the company obtained by the Times and Guardian, Mears described the entire incident as “a messy and {…}
The Royal Ballet and Opera has pulled its “Tosca” production from the Israeli National Opera’s 2026 season in Tel Aviv. The news comes following internal pressure from its staff, and the decision was communicated to Royal Ballet and Opera employees on Aug. 1. In a statement, Alex Beard, chief executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera, said, “We have made {…}