The necessary consents and funding were obtained, and work began in 2002 on a new multipurpose arts centre on the Cardiff Bay site. The centre included a 1,900-seat theatre, which, among other uses, became WNO's home base from 2004, with its own rehearsal space and offices in the complex. In the first decade of the 21st century WNO gave more than 120 performances a year, with a repertoire, generally, of eight full-scale operas. Its regular audience figures totalled over 150,000 annually, in ten principal venues, three of them in Wales and seven in England. During this period the company was criticised for being insufficiently Welsh. A local politician, Adam Price, said that WNO ought to have a Welsh musical director; Alun Hoddinott said in 2004, "WNO has put on perhaps four or five Welsh operas over 20 years. ... They just seem to have an anti-Welsh music bias. I am sad that they do not do something for Welsh composers, especially young ones." A more positive view of WNO came from Scotland, where the two main newspapers, "The Scotsman" and "The Herald", greeted a visit from the company in 2005 with enthusiastic praise, contrasting the flourishing of opera in Wales with its neglect by politicians in Scotland and the consequent decline of Scottish Opera. In 2010 WNO commissioned "Gair ar Gnawd" ("Word on Flesh"), by Pwyll ap Siôn and Menna Elfyn, with words in Welsh, described as "a contemporary story about Wales today ... inspired by the translation of the Bible". From 2006 to 2011 the chief executive (titled "artistic director") was John Fisher. His term overlapped with that of Lothar Koenigs who was musical director from 2009 to 2016. A highlight of this period was the 2010 production of "Die Meistersinger", produced by Richard Jones, starring Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs. The production won superlatives from reviewers. In 2011 David Pountney was appointed to succeed Fisher as chief executive. He had worked with the company since the 1970s, most recently on a 2006 "The Flying Dutchman" with Terfel which was set in space. In 2013 he programmed a trilogy of operas set in Tudor England: Donizetti's "Anna Bolena", "Maria Stuarda" and "Roberto Devereux", with another trilogy the following year, on the theme of fallen women – Puccini's "Manon Lescaut", Henze's "Boulevard Solitude" and Verdi's "La traviata".