Washington National Opera’s divorce-in-progress from the Kennedy Center has triggered several custody battles to determine the future of its assets, including its $30 million endowment, the WNO studios in Takoma Park, a massive collection of sets, and its prized musicians: the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, a completely different ensemble from the National Symphony Orchestra.
“We are seeking, basically, our data, the leases to the buildings where we work and the return of our endowment,” says Francesca Zambello, artistic director of the WNO.
The good news, Zambello tells Washingtonian, is that after some initial hurdles, legal negotiations are “going well” to ensure transfer of the physical assets, plus leases for a scenery warehouse near Baltimore and a 50,000-square-foot studio plus costume storage space in Takoma Park.
“That will become our main home,” Zambello says. “That’s all working out.”
While long associated with the Kennedy Center’s red-carpeted halls, WNO has also been an institution in Takoma Park for decades. Voices of rehearsing singers echo through halls of what otherwise looks like a pale brick office building on Willow Street. Employees and visiting artists are regulars at the neighborhood’s coffee shops and restaurants. “We love Takoma Park,” Zambello says, adding that she regrets not buying in the neighborhood when she stepped into the artistic director’s role in 2012.
Extracting the endowment after 15 years of operating under the auspices of the Kennedy Center will take more work—and a lot of lawyers. “It is rightly ours,” Zambello says of the endowment, declining to comment further on the negotiations. “We have a very large legal team.”
After operating independently since 1956, WNO signed an “affiliation” agreement in 2011 that transferred “all of its remaining assets, liabilities and employees” to the Kennedy Center. The merger likely saved WNO, which had struggled through the 2008 financial crisis. According to public tax documents, the company signed a second affiliation agreement in 2024. Both documents allowed WNO to maintain its own corporate charter, board of trustees, and fundraising efforts.
But the affiliation has been under duress ever since February 2025, when President Trump fired all Kennedy Center board members appointed by Democrats and installed himself as chairman. A perpetual state of upheaval, artist cancellations and ticket-sale freefall followed. In November, the board voted to add Trump’s name to the building, a move that new center president Richard Grenell said was justified because it gave America’s unofficial national arts center a “bipartisan” moniker.
But in Zambello’s estimation, it’s a lack of bipartisanship that’s fueling the Kennedy Center’s woes. Last spring, performances of WNO’s well-sung, strikingly designed production of Porgy and Bess failed to sell more than 50 percent. “We knew we had to do something,” Zambello says. By October, WNO staff members were told a move was likely. The 37-member board’s formal vote took place January 9. A week later, WNO announced that two March productions—Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha and a revival of The Crucible—would move to George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.
Patrons “voted with their feet,” and Zambello said, but in addition to ticket-sale boycotts, Grenell’s new policy that all programming be “revenue neutral” also forced the move. According to the WNO’s open letter, Grenell expected all programming to be fully funded before he would approve choices. That’s not how performing arts fundraising works: Although donors occasionally tie money to commissions, the majority of operas require years of advance planning to book big stars and craft co-productions. A fundraising blitz follows.
“I don’t want our company to go down because of unreasonable demands,” Zambello says.
Like rival pop stars releasing break-up songs, the Kennedy Center’s leaders have offered a counter narrative. Grenell submitted statements to Washingtonian insisting that his team that approached the WNO last year about ending the affiliation agreement. Zambello and her colleagues, “began to be open to the idea,” he said, but it was the center that decided to “end the EXCLUSIVE partnership with the Washington Opera so that we can have the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S.”
He did not provide any examples.
As spelled out in the National Cultural Center Act of 1958, presenting opera is core to the Kennedy Center’s mission, along with “classical and contemporary music, drama, dance, and poetry.” Asking the WNO to leave without a replacement would appear to violate the spirit of that legislation.
Zambello can’t imagine any American company touring to the Kennedy Center under its current leadership. Not only is the art form costly to tour, “It would be like crossing a picket line,” she said. “These companies are our friends.” Case in point: Next month, Lyric Opera Kansas City will stage its first ever Porgy and Bess, using the Washington National Opera’s sets and costumes, with Zambello directing.
Thankfully, both WNO March productions slated for the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, which has a smaller stage and pit than the Opera House, and will both fit on Lisner stage, Zambello says. (The WNO relocated its production of Macbeth there last year on short notice.) Cast and orchestra sizes will not be reduced.
Zambello says WNO will soon sign venue contracts for its production of West Side Story, choreographed by Tony nominee Joshua Bergasse, plus a location for its gala hosted by Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, who said he’d rejoin the event now that WNO has broken with the Kennedy Center.
“Our goal as we go forward is to work in multiple venues that serve a broad DMV audience,” Zambello says.
As an independent organization, WNO will take on a slew of services previously provided by the Kennedy Center, such as PR, marketing, and ticket sales, hence the need for patron data. Stuck in the middle of the custody battle are 61 members of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, whose future as full-time musicians with benefits remains unclear.
“It’s a complicated situation,” says Edward Malaga, a frequent substitute with the orchestra who was recently reelected as president of the American Federation of Musicians Local 161-710. (“Either congratulations or condolences” are in order, he says, laughing dryly.)
Typically in major North American cities, resident ballet and opera companies have separate orchestras, but from its inception, the Kennedy Center favored touring dance companies rather than setting up its own company. So since 1978, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra has worked under two contracts: one for WNO and one for Kennedy Center programming, each guaranteeing minimum hours of pay for all musicians plus formulas for upping the salaries of those who play more than others.
“I do not know of any other situation in America that is analogous to the situation at the Kennedy Center” Malaga says.
In addition to playing for dance companies, Opera House Orchestra members have right of first refusal to perform with touring musicals, the Kennedy Center Honors, and other special events like the annual Messiah sing-along. The Broadway Center Stage series, discontinued after the Trump takeover, was successful in part because the shows featured full-size, synthesizer-free pits of Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra members.
“The level of artistry was just exceptional,” Malaga says.
Now the orchestra is facing a reduced musical-theater schedule and a cascade of cancellations—most recently, the Martha Graham Dance Company, which was to have performed Appalachian Spring with the orchestra.
If the musicians’ financial situation is perilous, Kennedy Center leadership should take the blame, Zambello says. “They created a situation where musicals aren’t coming, ballet companies aren’t coming, and that’s who they play for. They’re going to have to remedy that, and they’re going to have to honor their contract.”
The Kennedy Center has upheld the 2024 labor agreement so far, Malaga says. He declined to comment on whether the musicians would continue to receive health insurance and other benefits, saying the orchestra’s bargaining committee is still gathering information about a fluid situation.
Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s spokesperson, declined to answer Washingtonian’s specific questions about the orchestra’s future but said in a statement that the musicians “will continue to be utilized across a wide range of programs in support of the Center’s strategic, creative and operational objectives.”
WNO’s pledge to honor all existing labor agreements was welcome news for the musicians and for the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents opera directors, singers, dancers, and stage managers.
“AGMA encourages everyone to support the artists and the company at this time of transition,” says Alicia Cook, a national spokesperson for the union.
The musicians are in a more awkward position. They encourage patrons to both follow WNO and continue to attend performances at the Kennedy Center, including National Symphony Orchestra concerts and American Ballet Theatre’s upcoming tour of The Winter’s Tale February 11 through 15, which will feature the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.
“Support for the artists is absolutely essential,” Malaga says. “People are misunderstanding the situation by thinking that, by shutting down the Kennedy Center, in effect this is sending some kind of message to the administration, when it’s really only hurting all of those folks who have dedicated their lives to the creation of this art in the building.”
It’s a challenging time, the union leader says. “So many lives and livelihoods are at stake.”
