WASHINGTON — The Washington National Opera announced Friday that it will move performances from the Kennedy Center in another major departure after President Donald Trump took over as the premier performing arts venue in the U.S. capital.
The opera said it would seek to end its association with the Kennedy Center through an “amicable transition” and return to independent operation. She cited funding restrictions imposed after Trump fired the Kennedy Center board and installed allies to oversee it.
The opera will curtail its spring season and move performances to other venues “to ensure fiscal prudence and meet its balanced budget commitments,” the opera said in a statement.
The statement did not mention Trump or the Kennedy Center’s new board’s decision to add the president’s name to the venue. Although Congress still formally calls it the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the building’s exterior and website now refer to the Trump Kennedy Center.
Ric Grenell, a Trump adviser serving as the Center’s interim executive director, said the venue has spent millions supporting the Washington National Opera but continues to operate at a deficit.
The separations will provide “flexibility and funding to present operas from around the world and from the United States,” Grenell said wrote on.
Artists from “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to rock star Peter Wolf have canceled events at the Kennedy Center since Trump ousted the previous management early last year and arranged for him to lead the board. The December renaming of the Trump Kennedy Center led to a new wave of cancellations.
Opera officials said the Center’s new business model required productions to be fully funded upfront, which they said was “incompatible with opera operations.” Ticket sales cover only a fraction of production costs, and opera companies rely on grants and donations to make up the difference, but they can’t secure them years in advance when planning productions.
The business model also does not conform to the opera’s model practice of using revenue from popular works to subsidize lesser-known, lower-grossing works, the opera said.
“I am proud to be associated with the National Monument to the Human Spirit, a place that has long served as a welcoming home to our ever-growing family of artists and opera lovers,” said Francesca Zambello, Washington National Opera’s artistic director for the past 14 years.
It promised to continue to offer a variety of shows, “from monumental classics to more modern works”.
Late Friday, WNO’s productions of “Treemonisha,” “The Crucible” and “West Side Story” were still listed on the Kennedy Center’s website.
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