Opera-ting on inequality: gender representation in creative roles at The Royal Opera.

Despite an international focus on gender inequality in the cultural and creative industries in recent years, there remains a lacuna of empirical data on the gendered dimension of work in opera. This paper establishes a baseline for understanding gender inequality in opera through a case study of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of the company's production credits from 2005/6–2019/20, we analyse the gender profile of credited stage directors across production type, repertoire, and creative teams. We find that women practitioners experience gender-based disadvantage in the creative roles central to opera production with negatively compounding effects on their visibility and prestige in the sector. Based on these findings, we assess The Royal Opera's pledge to achieve 50:50 gender balance for all creatives on new productions by 2022 and evaluate its ability to produce meaningful progress toward gender equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]