Welsh National Opera announces 80th anniversary season

Welsh National Opera (WNO) has announced its 2025-26 season, which is set to mark the company’s 80th anniversary year with new productions of The Flying Dutchman and Tosca as well as the return of recent successes Blaze of Glory! and Candide. The productions will launch in Cardiff before touring the UK.

The season – the company’s first under new co-CEOs and general directors Sarah Crabtree and Adele Thomas – will also feature returns to the Millenium Centre stage including the popular A Night at the Opera concerts and family show Play Opera LIVE, as well as a continuation of WNO Orchestra’s New Year concert tour and the company’s community engagement work.

Crabtree and Thomas said: ‘It is so thrilling to be announcing our first season at the helm of WNO: a season in which Welsh artists and Welsh stories are front and centre. It is a joy to welcome back so many old friends, see new emerging talent take the step up onto our stages and, through our extraordinary work with young people and a huge range of projects in our local communities, so many people make their first visit to the opera. We believe opera is the dynamic artform of our age and we are excited to be opening the doors on EICH Opera Cenedlaethol Cymru: YOUR Welsh National Opera.’

The Autumn Season will kick off with a new production of Puccini’s Tosca originated by Edward Dick at Opera North and directed by Hungarian conductor Gergely Madaras who makes his WNO debut. Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw will return to the WNO in the lead role alongside tenor Andrés Presno who returns to WNO to sing Cavaradossi.

The WNO’s 2023 production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide will return to the Cardiff stage with its original production team, led by director James Bonas and featuring brand-new conductor Ryan McAdams, who makes his WNO debut. Ed Lyon returns to the title role of Candide, alongside Welsh tenor Aled Hall who returns as the Governor and Soraya Mafi returning to sing Cunégonde.

A new production of The Flying Dutchman will open the spring season in a reimagined version by Welsh director, producer and video designer Jack Furness who makes his WNO debut alongside WNO music director Tomáš Hanus.

The WNO’s own journey across the last 80 years is reflected in Blaze of Glory!, the story of a group of Welsh miners who reform their male voice choir after a local mining disaster, which combines traditional Welsh harmonies with the a capella sounds of the 1950s and operetta, gospel and big band. The production, composed by David Hackbridge Johnson with libretto by Emma Jenkins, returns to the WNO stage with many of its original cast.