Identifying trends, assessing response: gender representation at the Royal Opera

In June 2019, The Royal Opera in London joined the Keychange initiative and pledged to achieve 50/50 gender parity across its creative teams by 2022.On the surface, this presents as a productive strategy to address a lack of representation in The Royal Opera’s creative hiring outcomes. However, the commitment to achieving 50/50 gender parity across “all creatives” can be seen as problematic when framed within a specifically operatic context. This article analyses the creative teams hired by The Royal Opera over fourteen performance seasons, from 2005/06 to 2019/20, and examines trends in gender representation in five key creative roles: stage director, set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, and projection/video designer. Drawing on this data, the article establishes an initial benchmark of industry trends around gender representation in these roles and highlights the limitations of The Royal Opera’s 50/50 strategy.