Opera singer turns to care work as hundreds protest at Senedd

According to Philip Lloyd-Evans of the Welsh Opera chorus, the cuts “are going to have a huge impact on the company going forward”.

“These chaotic cuts mean that neither your chorus nor your orchestra can operate full-time,” he said.

“The communities we reach will be smaller, the audiences we perform in front of will be smaller and the future of making music for our children will be much smaller.”

Minister for Culture and Social Justice Lesley Griffiths said: “I regret every cut we have for the budget.

“I didn’t go into politics to make budget cuts. But the reality is we’ve had 14 years of austerity and we’ve had one thing after the other.

“We’ve had the Covid pandemic, Brexit, we’ve got the cost of living crisis and it’s about making sure we use our money to the very best of our ability.”