Opera is a no-growth area, says Arts Council music chief
NewsThe violinist Claire Mera-Nelson, Director of Music at Arts Vouncil England, offers a rationalisation of last week’s decision to defund English National Opera and reduce subsidy for other companies.
This is the relevant section:
We are striking a new balance in our investments. Adapting where evidence tells us that audiences are very well served or changing how they like to experience music, or by reducing funding where organisations have suggested undertaking similar activities, in order to prioritise within the limitations of the resource we had available. To take our investment in opera as an example, compared to other forms of music we have seen almost no growth in audience demand for traditionally staged ‘grand’ or large-scale opera, which is where most of our current investment in opera sits. That doesn’t mean our appetite for investing in, or ambitions for, the opera ecology of England are diminished in any way. We are confident there is appetite to enjoy opera: at different scales, reimagined in new ways, and on new stages. This means we are increasing our investment in companies like English Touring Opera and Birmingham Opera Company and inviting Pegasus Opera and Opera UpClose to join our national portfolio for the first time, and we continue to invest in National Opera Studio, British Youth Opera, in Glyndebourne and Welsh National Opera (WNO) amongst others.
With this rebalancing of funding across the music portfolio, our aim is to protect and support the future development of England’s music ecology as a whole, as well as to ensure support for a new generation of audiences and musical talent. In cash terms, despite reductions to English National Opera, Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne, opera will still receive £30 million a year from the Arts Council – over 40% of our total investment in music. As part of our £65 million overall annual investment in music, we will also be increasing the amount we spend on classical music. Stated baldly, as cold hard cash, that represents an enormous commitment within our music portfolio.
There has been a lot of attention, understandably, on the impact of our decisions on English National Opera (ENO). Where do they fit in to our strategy? Reports that the Arts Council is expecting English National Opera to pick itself up, move lock, stock and barrel to Manchester and be up and running there within only a few months are wide of the mark. We have been clear about our offer: at this stage, we are offering ENO the opportunity of a year’s funding (more than £1 million a month until October next year). This will help to support their remodelling, and their thinking about relocation outside London and the role the Coliseum may play in their future.
We also hope to work with them to reimagine how they can most effectively design a reinvigorated national operatic offer for England, and to support them in doing this we additionally offered them a further cash investment of £5 million a year for the following two years.
Full blog post here.
If it is true that there was no consultation I think the ENO decision might be susceptible to Judicial Review
Absolutely right. Unless people have the opportunity to see opera and begin to appreciate it there will be a diminishing audience. Of course it’s not just opera. I got hooked on classical music by being able to sit behind the orchestra at the City Hall in Sheffield and was privileged to hear a wide range of music played by the Halle orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli – all for a Shilling! The BBC is also caught up in this trap. The BBC Young Musician of the Year programs on terrestrial TV were seen by only a few people. Why? Because there was no publicity for the minimalist coverage presented. Next year there will, I predict, be even less coverage “…because we had no audience last year” It’s a self fulfilling situation. No funding so no opera so no audience so no need for funding. Cretins.
ACE makes grants at its own discretion whether rightly or wrongly. A judicial review could not order the restoration of the grant to ACE within the National Portfolio. I’m not saying ACE is right or wrong but this is a political Issue (in spite of the arm’s length principal} not a legal one.
Hi Dennis: Stuart Murphy introduced the idea of moving to Manchester (he is from Leeds) since the day he arrived at ENO – many current and ex employees have confirmed this. Serota is a highly intelligent man, he took the much less intelligent Murphy up on his idea.
Murphy’s Law I’m afraid, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.” That’s why Murphy is leaving as already announced last month. Hardly a coincidence.
She reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic: ‘A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’. Equally apt for a woman, in this case.
Opera is a no-growth area, there isn’t any argument that could logically demonstrate the opposite. It is a negative growth area, i.e., a declining industry. Ms. Mera-Nelson is expressing the common sense point of view of the average responsible person.
Note the statement: “We are confident there is appetite to enjoy opera: at different scales, reimagined in new ways, and on new stages.”
Why should taxpayers pay for the rubbish put on stage by megalomaniac directors, to entertain the intellectual urges of an elitist gerontocracy? Pigs, elephant, horses and the like? Sadomasochism, naked bodies, ugliness and such things?
Opera ought to self-finance such nonsense, or close the doors. The latter is probably what will happen the world over, with a few exceptions that will still rely on tourist flows (e.g., Vienna, NY, Milan).
The world does not want or need opera.
Why not chuck the whole of classical music then? Nothing about it meets the capitalistic view of the world. If it does not bring big profits, then eliminate it.
As I’m sure you are aware of, the market of art doesn’t act exactly like corporative business. Let’s take arts, for example. At the time of the great impressionists, those who have given their lives doing art, weren’t profitable nor offered a interesting product. Nonetheless, art galleries (most of witch were funded by the government) invested on those soon-to-be legends that today are worth billions in revenue to the big galleries. In reality, art in itself is impossible to predict or to measure by corporative standards, and opera is no exception. Good singers of opera can bring millions on revenue, but they’re not fabricated like pop singers, so they need years of practice, and experience, and if there’s no opera house to give those artist the experience and training necessary to be profitable, there’s no way new stars will blossom. If you want to talk about strictly economic decisions, try to consider how classical music was the foundation to the record companies that today make billions. If it wasn’t for Caruso, there would be no Taylor swift. I urge you to take that into consideration in your line of thinking. Much appreciated.
Sorry, not responsible but irresponsible people who clearly are philistines.
There is also the point that putting musicians and all the backroom staff out of work costs money in having to support them by welfare handouts, reduces the tax income AND reduces the attractiveness of the city and country to culture tourists. Bayreuth benefits greatly from the annual Wagner festival and so would London if we had a decent concert hall such as the Bartók Béla National Concert Hall in Budapest and an Arts Council who knew anything about the arts.
Doesn’t take long for stereotypes to raise their ugly head. But thanks for your worthy contribution.
Sic dixit homo oeconomicus pusillanimus.
@baretruth – speak for yourself. Just who are you to decide what is the “bare truth”, let alone “the common sense point of view of the average responsible person” or what “the world” wants or needs? Making claims like that has all the hallmarks of crass populism and the tyranny of the majority that generally follows in its wake. As for the cliché about what “taxpayers” should pay for, I’m a taxpayer too – maybe I pay more tax than you, maybe not. But why should my taxes go towards your healthcare? You may want to live in a world without opera, but I don’t and I’d question your right to impose your impoverished view on me. And I’d rather see the “intellectual urges of an elitist gerontocracy” (! – most of whom have paid taxes for most of their life) catered for than your brand of anti-intellectual philistinism.
You could saythat about anything other than air, food, warmth and shelter. Why does opera have to justify itself in particular?
Edna Welthorpe (Mrs). still lives!
Oh my. 65 million. Invested in music. In the UK. That’s about what Munich, Vienna, Salzburg and Paris invest in toto every year. (I’m wildly guessing here bit you see what I’m truing to say.)
But then these don’t finance the British monarchy. Also a non-growth area.
Imagine what you could reallocate if Britain sent Chuck and Godzilla off on a long bicycle trip to Scandinavia.
Google Translate, which can detect the written language and translate into English, doesn’t seem to be working.
Use deepl – it is better than Google…
Who is this woman violinist from ACE? Never seen her at Abbey Road, Lyndhurst, BBC or anywhere on the London circuit, yet she has wholeheartedly demolished many musicians lives.
Obviously not an accomplished player, but became a Suit.
Yuck. This kind musician execptionalism attitude is unpleasant.
You’re obviously not a London muso, Rawrabbit.
Perhaps an armchair critic? Or member of ACE?
You are mistaken. I am very much a London musician, of 30 years. I just don’t blindly follow the group think, which gets very tiresome. Just because we are “accomplished” and can turn up on time (essentially what we do) doesn’t mean many of us (including me) have first clue about how to run the music business.
You essentially called the “suits”, failed musicians. I guess you think it sounds smart on here, but please do have the guts to mention that, in AIR’s nice, new-ish cafe, to the Isobel Griffiths team next time you see them, or the BBC orchestra management teams you work for. See how that goes down.
It’s disrespectful of the people who create and organise our working world.
We’re colleagues, maybe friends (but we cower here in anonymity) as I’m sooo big time like you, doing all that kind of work mention. Get over yourself.
Many, many, many of those “suits” and “unaccoumpished” players now manage, organise, negotiate, fix and find ALL the work we do! Your attitude is awful and unfortunately endemic. It disrespects the management colleagues I’m sure you are happy to suck up to when it suits you.
99% of musicians I know (yes, mostly big timers like you) can barely organise a chamber group concert in a village hall and have no clue to the work that goes in to create the work that makes us a living.
Rawgabbit.
You apparently think your colleagues are incapable of organising anything. Well, the pandemic showed how multi skilled and adaptable big timers (your words!) were in earning a living!
As for “sucking up” to management,fixers and the like, surely ones security is in ones talent?
That’s why I’m neither a Suit nor ACE minion.
I thought that was coming. Of course, there were plenty of musicians who adapted and found other jobs, which was a joy to see.
That’s not what I’m talking though. I’m talking about being able to run the music business at a managerial level. You deride people for doing these jobs because they aren’t “accomplished” enough to play. That’s unpleasant superiority.
Thanks for telling us how talented you are though.
Hear hear!!!!!!!
There’s an interesting tie up…between her and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (she was a violinist in that outfit) Chi Chi Nwanoku (she was a double bass player in that outfit) and hence Chineke! and the whopping grant given to them. Mm.
Waiting for a viola player rebuttal…..
Am I the only one who thinks discussing opera in terms of “appetite” and “ecology” within the same paragraph, is just a bit odd (promoting ‘appetite’ among humans leads to the opposite of ‘ecology’).
You speak for the world do you? You’re obviously anti opera. Are you seeing a psychiatrist for delusions of grandeur?
Stuart Murphy knew this was coming, no matter how much he continues to lie about his convenient resignation. Any regular ENO audience members knows how often many seats are empty. Often the entire top balcony. They can‘t fill the house for enough shows six months a year. That money can bring music to more people/kids/future generations outside of London – which has plenty of classical music. Even as a fan of the old company, I can admit that. And we can all still pop over to the Royal Opera House. Many British singers and directors and designers work for both. London is not losing anything – save a company that has been publicly failing for years now. If only some of these emotional artists could step back and have some objective perspective. Then again, that‘s not what we pay them for.
That’s one of the sanest comments I’ve seen on here for days
Bx! ACE not investing in schools for the next generation to appreciate opera like Shakespeare and the Classics should be.
This is I think a symptom of the England of today and it’s longstanding ambiguous relationship with the Arts.
Bare Truth’s comment sounds like the philistine isle that it the UK (or more particualrly England) seems to have become, a place and mindset where opera and arts are now sneered at as a thing of the ”elites” because the arts are not profitable and don’t ”pay their way”.
Whether this is thought of as ”rubbish” is only an opinion by one commenter. There are still people from all stratums of UK society who still very much want to experience opera and the arts in general.
As for me, I’m not of the ”elite”; I am from a very working class background and have had a lifelong love of opera, ballet and classical music.
Vielleicht in der Wirchlichkeit ist England ein Land ohne Kultur.
The idea that Ace is re-balancing in favour of organisations that bring greater audiences; and are removing duplication, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. They are still funding a bunch of symphony orchestras in London who all do more-or-less the same thing, most of whom have no real plan to develop audiences in any meaningful way, not have demonstrated across the last decade that they can do so. Why fund this level of duplication of activity (much of it lower quality than the cost would suggest), mostly to 50%-75% full halls, and yet not ENO?
So funding for an art form is now dependent, not only on its ability to tick all kinds of diversity boxes, but also to succeed in growing its audience? In good times, opera companies generally operate at close to full capacities. How, then, do thay grow an audience? Remove seats and put in multiple standing capacity. arrange West End transfers of their most popular productions, build larger theatres? Actually, audiences for opera, ballet, even classical concerts, is (or was, pre-pandemic) reasonably stable, supply meeting demand more or less. Penalising a company (and seemingly only one) for failing to grow its audience is obviously nonsense and a peg on which to hang ACE’s defunding rather than give the actual reasons for the decision.
ENO has tons of empty seats. Often. Their audience has shrunk over the last 8 years in particular. Now it‘s just bitter old white people like Sue Bickley whining about her precious nostalgia. The company has no real value now – it‘s self-rewarding B List British opera. Focus the money elsewhere, let the ROH and smaller companies serve London. Stop pretending like this company is some essential part of UK life. Nonsense.
I only needed to see the word “reimagine” to know that what followed would be sententious bilge . What really needs to be abolished is the board, including this woman, of Arts Council England
Yes indeed. Germany supports something like 70 ensemble-based opera companies and spends Euros 3 billions annually on opera. Germany also supports properly over 200 theatre reps with ensemble-based companies. In the British Isles (including the Republic of Ireland) there is not one single ensemble-based company. There is no comparison possible between what happens in the British Isles and what European countries do to maintain the live performing arts. In fact the UK must change. Or there will be nothing by way of theatre, opera and classical music to speak of (or experience) here.