The Latvian National Opera House is home to both the Latvian National Opera and the Latvian National Ballet. In the course of a season that runs from September to June the LNO performs more than 200 performances, staging on average six new productions every season of both opera and ballet. The LNO today is a repertoire theatre.

While paying tribute to the traditional values of the classical and Romantic operas and ballets that are the cornerstones of its repertoire, the LNO continually strives to seek contemporary forms of expression. Under the leadership of General Director Andrejs Zagars, the LNO stage regularly resounds with successful productions of Baroque operas, modern operatic and ballet masterpieces, children's performances, and original Latvian works. The LNO is open to the world: the company has an active touring schedule with many superb guest singers, conductors, choreographers and directors frequently gracing the LNO stage. In recent seasons, the LNO has been touring to the Hong Kong Festival, the Bordeaux Opera, the Catania Opera, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Luxembourg Opera, the Dalhalla Festival in Sweden, to Mexico. The LNO is a place where talent is born – popular soloists like Elina Garanca, Kristine Opolais, Marina Rebeka, Maija Kovalevska, Inese Galante, Aleksandrs Antonenko and Egils Silins started their careers at the LNO.  

The LNO Company was founded soon after independence was declared on the 18^th of November, 1918, and in the 1920s the opera company was joined by the first professional Latvian ballet ensemble. The LNO occupies a stately neo-classical style building in Riga, originally constructed as the Riga German Theatre in 1863.

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