Welsh National Opera cuts Liverpool tours as funding shrinks

Funding has been cut for opera, such as WNO's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, concerts and outreach work

The Welsh National Opera (WNO) will no longer be travelling to Liverpool to perform as cuts in public funding force it to make cost savings.

The Cardiff-based opera company said a shake-up in English arts funding meant its funding from Arts Council England had dropped by 35%, or £2.2m.

WNO receives funding from the arts councils of England and Wales.

WNO director Aidan Lang said the decision was "regrettable" but had been carefully considered.

The public funding is used to provide large-scale opera, concerts and outreach work across Wales and in seven major cities and regions in England.

"We have had to make the very difficult decision to remove Liverpool from our touring programme," Mr Lang said.

The company had "no option but to make cost savings", he added.