Bringing the very best of both opera and ballet to an international audience

The Royal Opera House, home to two of the world’s great artistic companies – The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet – thrives, indeed depends, on the international. With almost 20 nationalities represented within The Royal Ballet, many international guest artists performing with The Royal Opera each Season, and nine nationalities represented within the world class Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, there are few places in the world we don’t draw talent from, and few places we don’t reach in return.

You don’t need to look far to see this. A passing glance at our Spring Season 2017 will take you on a journey around the world. From our Danish Director of Opera, Kasper Holten, will come productions from Germany’s Richard Wagner, Italy’s Giacomo Puccini as well as co-productions with France’s Opera National de Paris, Norway’s National Opera and Austria’s Salzburg Festival. And that’s just Europe.

Sukanya, Ravi Shankar’s only opera, which receives its world premiere this May, is a celebration of Eastern and Western classical music, and will be performed by an ensemble of Indian musicians and Western singers. While Madama Butterfly, coming in March, will take audiences to wartime Japan in a beautiful, oriental-inspired production of the famous Puccini opera.

Likewise, The Royal Ballet, with dancers hailing from South Africa to Slovakia, was last October integral to the success of World Ballet Day. Joining The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet, The Royal Ballet helped bring 23 hours of live footage to a global reach of more than 135 million, in the longest Facebook live stream in history.

Productions from both of these great companies are also beamed to more than 35 countries (and 768,000 people) across the globe through ROH Cinema, a huge reach which accounts for more than 50% of our overall audience.

A look at the Royal Opera House’s YouTube subscribers only adds to this picture. With the largest following of any arts organization in the world, 87% of the Royal Opera House’s YouTube traffic comes from outside the UK, as do 78% of our 177,000 Instagram followers.

This is audience reach which would have been unthinkable ten years ago, and which increasingly characterises the prevalence of the British creative industries across the world.

Ours is an organization which has embraced new technologies which makes this reach possible and transcends national boundaries. It’s an organization which attracts the best talent from across the globe and, in return, brings the very best of both opera and ballet to an international audience, both here in Covent Garden but also in locations around the world.

We are one of the world’s great opera houses bringing a universal art form to an international audience. This is why we are delighted to be part of the FCO’s Global Britain campaign.