[1] Founded in 1957, the company had Kirsten Flagstad as its first general manager, from 1958 to 1960, and placed an emphasis on presenting operas and ballets written by Norwegian composers, and Norwegian as the standard language of the opera singers.

In January 2009, the Norwegian Opera and Ballet was reorganized, during the tenure of Tom Remlov as general managing director.

The company's current general manager is Nils Are Karstad Lysø.

In 2008 Radio Marconi, an Italian company, installed a seatback multimedia system, from an idea of Geir Mortil of the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, allowing audiences to follow opera libretto in other languages in addition to the original language.

The company's current director of ballet is Ingrid Lorentzen, who succeeded Espen Giljane in the post.