The Washington National Opera announced Friday that it will move performances away from the Kennedy Center in another high-profile departure following President Trump’s takeover of the U.S. capital’s leading performing arts venue.
The opera said it will seek to end its affiliation with the Kennedy Center through an “amicable transition” and will return to operating independently. It cited financial constraints imposed after Mr. Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s board and installed allies to oversee it.
The opera will reduce its spring season and move performances to other venues “to ensure fiscal prudence and fulfill its obligations for a balanced budget,” the opera said in a statement.
The statement did not mention Mr. Trump or the decision by the Kennedy Center’s new board to add the president’s name to the venue. Though Congress still formally calls it the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the building’s exterior and website now refer to it as the Trump Kennedy Center.
Ric Grenell, a Trump aide serving as the Center’s interim executive director, said the venue has spent millions to support the Washington National Opera, but it continues to operate at a deficit.
Parting ways will provide “the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S.,” Grenell wrote on X.
Prior to his second term, Mr. Trump had a strained relationship with the Kennedy Center dating back to when he announced that he and first lady Melania Trump would not attend the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017 after some of that year’s recipients threatened a boycott.
According to its website, the Kennedy Center hosts over 2,200 performances, events and exhibits a year, with over two million visitors annually. The center was created by Congress in 1958 and serves as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told CBS News on Wednesday that he has “bigger fish to fry” rather than commenting on the Kennedy Center name change. The HHS secretary said he was not involved in the decision and did not recommend against the name change. When asked whether he personally had a problem with the name change, after several members of his own family publicly criticized it, Kennedy said his focus remains on “making America healthy again.”
Artists ranging from “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to rock star Peter Wolf have also called off events at the Kennedy Center since Mr. Trump ousted the previous leadership early last year and arranged for himself to head the board of trustees. The December rebranding as the Trump Kennedy Center led to a new wave of cancellations.
Opera officials said the Center’s new business model requires productions to be fully funded in advance, which it said is “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 can’t secure them years in advance, when they’re planning productions.
The business model also doesn’t accommodate the opera’s model practice of using revenue from popular works to subsidize lower-grossing, lesser-known works, the opera said.
“I have been proud to be affiliated with a national monument to the human spirit, a place that has long served as an inviting home for our ever-growing family of artists and opera lovers,” said Francesca Zambello, the Washington National Opera’s artistic director for the past 14 years.
She vowed to continue offering a variety of shows, “from monumental classics to more contemporary works.”
Late Friday, WNO productions of “Treemonisha,” “The Crucible” and “West Side Story” were still listed on the Kennedy Center website.
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