Welsh National Opera (WNO) is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1946. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main scale operas. In Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Llandudno, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea, they regularly perform to over 150,000 people.
Although productions were initially sung in English tra...
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Welsh National Opera (WNO) is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1946. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main scale operas. In Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Llandudno, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea, they regularly perform to over 150,000 people.
Although productions were initially sung in English translation, from the 1970s onwards, operas were increasingly sung in the original languages; not only Italian, German and French, but also Russian and Czech. Surtitles were also provided.
The Company has always provided a mix of traditional and less-well-known operas, including those of Alban Berg, Richard Strauss, Leoš Janáček and Benjamin Britten.
In 2004, WNO acquired its first permanent home in Cardiff in the Wales Millennium Centre, a performing arts centre in Cardiff Bay.
The opera company consists of a professional orchestra (The...
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