The Covent Garden home of The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera, now trading as the Royal Ballet and Opera, with set-building and learning work in Thurrock, Essex.
The Royal Ballet and Opera, which has been known for years as the Royal Opera House, is a charity that puts on ballet and opera in the heart of London's Covent Garden. Its two main companies are The Royal Ballet, described on its website as Britain's largest ballet company, and The Royal Opera, one of the world's leading opera companies. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House plays for nearly all main-stage performances. A bloomberg.com headline from April 2024 reports that the organisation changed its name, and its website now uses the rbo.org.uk address.
In its own words the organisation is a charity committed to "opening up opportunities". It runs performances, community programmes and training for artists and craftspeople, and it reaches audiences through touring, cinema relays, free outdoor screenings, radio, television and live-streaming. We did not find a longer mission statement or a list of values on the pages we read, so we have not made one up. Its collections archive records the history of three theatres that have stood on the Covent Garden site since 1732, and the site welcomes more than a million visitors a year.
The organisation has two main UK locations. Covent Garden is the main home. The second is High House Production Park at Purfleet in Thurrock, Essex, which hosts an extensive learning programme and is also where sets for Royal Opera House productions are built, in the Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop. In July 2017, for the programme's ten-year anniversary, 27 Thurrock "Trailblazer" schools brought more than 600 students and 100 teachers to the park for four days of workshops, including scenic art and singing sessions. A deputy headteacher said many of her pupils had never been to a theatre or seen an opera before.
The organisation says it works with over 1,250 schools and runs community programmes and affordable performances for families, schools and students. It also trains emerging artists and craftspeople, which tells you that making and backstage skills sit alongside performance in its work. The pages we could read did not give staff numbers or a values statement, so we cannot say more about internal culture than that it combines artists, orchestra players, craftspeople, learning staff and a large operations team.
A company that stages ballet and opera employs dancers, singers, musicians and conductors, but also stage managers, lighting and sound technicians, wigs, make-up and costume teams, scenic artists and set builders in Thurrock, and staff in learning and community work, ticketing, front of house, marketing, fundraising, finance and digital. If your interests lie in how things are built, how a show runs night after night, or how art reaches new audiences, there are many ways in. Its website has a Work Here page for current openings.
Website: www.rbo.org.uk
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