Washington National Opera bows out of Kennedy Centre

New signage, The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts, is unveiled on the Kennedy Center, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON — The Washington National Opera announced Friday that it will move performances away from the Kennedy Centre in another high-profile departure following U.S. President Donald 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 Centre through an “amicable transition” and will return to operating independently. It cited financial constraints imposed after Trump fired the Kennedy Centre’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 Trump or the decision by the Kennedy Centre’s new board to add the president’s name to the venue. Though Congress still formally calls it the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, the building’s exterior and website now refer to it as the Trump Kennedy Centre.

Ric Grenell, a Trump aide serving as the Centre’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.

Artists ranging from “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to rock star Peter Wolf have called off events at the Kennedy Centre since U.S. President Donald 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 Centre led to a new wave of cancellations.

Opera officials said the Centre’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 Centre website.

Lou Kesten, The Associated Press