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WASHINGTON (CN) — The Washington National Opera argues in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the Kennedy Center wrongfully withheld over $17 million in gifts and donations owed to the opera company.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the opera company said the Kennedy Center put a significant portion of its funds at risk by using them as collateral for a line of credit.
The suit was filed six months after the company stopped performing at the Kennedy Center following President Donald Trump’s takeover as chairman and as the center continues to challenge a federal judge’s order requiring it to remove Trump’s name from the building’s facade by day’s end.
The company asks Federal Claims Judge Robin Meriweather to order the return of the $17 million and require an audit of the Kennedy Center’s finances for fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
“These funds represent years of gifts from loyal supporters who gave specifically to advance WNO’s mission, its performances, its artists and its education and community programs,” the opera said in a statement. “WNO has a fiduciary responsibility to its donors to ensure their contributions are honored and used as intended to support the work of WNO’s artists and its programs.”
According to the opera company, the parties entered a 15-year agreement under which the Kennedy Center would manage donations made to the opera in exchange for producing its performances.
By the second half of 2025, however, the center had stopped providing certain contracted services, including marketing, fundraising, administrative support and timely reporting on the growth of the opera’s funds.
Instead of restoring those services, the center proposed terminating the agreement, which became effective in January 2026. The opera immediately requested the return of its $17 million but says the matter has made little progress over the past five months, despite requests for mediation.
The opera maintained three separate funds managed by the center: the WNO Endowment Fund, the WNO Board Special Revenue Fund and the WNO Fund for Innovation and Excellence.
The parties last revised their agreement in 2024, requiring the Kennedy Center to record all financial activity and provide periodic reports on account balances and transactions. For the previous 15 years, the center had routinely provided annual financial statements each January or February.
The opera company said relations began deteriorating in March 2025 when the center reduced or failed to provide staffing and support services required under the 2024 agreement.
The WNO Development Office, responsible for the company’s largest source of revenue, was supposed to expand from eight employees to 12 under the 2024 deal. By November 2025, it had no full-time staff.
“The result was chaos,” the opera company said. “Gifts went unprocessed or unacknowledged, donor benefits went unfulfilled and donor communications went unanswered. WNO staff had to perform work the Kennedy Center had agreed to provide, trying to protect donor relationships and to preserve WNO’s fundraising pipeline. WNO employees performed multiple job functions at once and worked extended hours to maintain basic operations.”
The opera company said it lost access to its financial records in fall 2025 after the Kennedy Center installed new financial-management software and repeatedly denied the opera’s requests for access.
On Jan. 8, 2026, the Kennedy Center’s chief financial officer told the opera company that money in the Board Special Revenue Fund belonged to the center, not the opera. The email also disclosed that the Kennedy Center had already used those funds as collateral for its line of credit.
On Jan. 9, 2026, the opera company’s board voted to terminate the agreement and requested the return of all Washington National Opera assets by March 31, 2026.
Later that same day, the Kennedy Center cut off the opera’s access to its electronic data stored on the Kennedy Center’s systems, including its emails, donor information, meeting minutes and Board of Trustees records dating back to 2011. The center further locked the opera out of its workplace locations and sent termination letters to its employees.
Then-Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell posted on X that the Kennedy Center had decided to terminate its partnership with the opera company.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment.
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