On the first night of Welsh National Opera’s new Flying Dutchman, the company’s co-directors walked on stage to salute their departing music director Tomas Hanus. There were cheers, of course; Hanus has been a courageous MD and his Wagner was thrilling. But no one has been appointed to succeed him, and that morning WNO had announced a 2026-27 season that amounts to a near-total artistic collapse, with just two full-scale operas. A major international company has been reduced to a community arts provider, and a Pollyanna press release announcing ‘a powerful statement of renewal’ did nothing to quell the feeling that the lights are going out on Cardiff Bay.

It’s not just Cardiff, either. We hear much about the plight of English National Opera which, for the record, has absolutely not relocated to Manchester. But that whole fuss created a smokescreen behind which the English and Welsh Arts Councils (both are culpable) have eviscerated a far more vital national company. WNO’s carefully nurtured touring networks were the backbone of professional opera in much of England. They’ve been shredded by opera-hating ideologues. Liverpool has already lost its WNO season and now there’s no main-stage work in Bristol, too. WNO used to present eight productions a year in Birmingham, but as of next season, the........

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