Unpopular post: The case for closing ENO
OperaThe defence of English National Opera by its chairman and chief executive boils down to this:
1 ENO should have been given more notice of closure
2 ENO draws in a younger audience
3 ENO brings employment to London musicians.
The third cause must not be taken lightly. The Arts Council has allocated £17 million in tail-off funds that will go mostly in redundancy payments. Were ENO to move to Manchester (which is highly unlikely) it would recruit an orchestra and chorus locally.
But let’s examine the first two defence lines, which are specious.
Chairman Harry Brünjes has said the defunding came as a complete shock. This is far from true. The board received repeated warnings that funding would be discontinued if the company continued on its downhill slide. For the past year and more, it has ceased to function as a full-time opera company, leasing out its stage for months on end to commercial musicals. It has also failed to fill the house or produce a consistent body of work.
The ENO board is made up mostly of financiers and hedge-funders. They have failed to justify their presence with substantial donations. The best way to get rid of Harry Brünjes and his board is by shutting the company down. Clearing the decks would then open the possibility for ENO to return in some more efficient and principled form – for instance, as a touring company that trains young British singers.
As far as the claim of a younger, cool audience is concerned, this has been achieved by giving tickets away to 20-somethings at £5 a seat.
There is a price to pay for this act of generosity. The cost to the taxpayer of a night at English National Opera is now £195 subsidy per seat.
Put another way, every operagoer is receiving more in state benefits than most of the musicians receive in nightly pay.
That is morally unsustainable.
ENO has lost its way.
It must go.
*
By way of comparison, a ticket for next year’s Glastonbury Festival has risen to £340. There is no subsidy involved. All tickets sold out last night within an hour of issue. Last year, 1,397 different artists performed over the weekend, at a cost per artist of 24 pence for each festival-goer.
photo: Yeomen of the Guard
The 195 number is chilling. Is that based on the full capacity of the Coliseum, or per seat that is sold?
I believe it’s per seat sold. Norman’s comments about the Chair and the Board are spot on. The Arts Council previously reduced the grant by some £5 Million which was a severe warning at the time. Harry B just carried on regardless. It’s not he and the Board who will suffer, it’s the musicians and the chorus and everyone else employed by ENO. Harry and Stuart Murphy have turned out to be the Liz Trust and the Kwasi Kwarteng of the opera world, trashing a great opera company.
Thus, of course, the more ticket that are sold, then the lower the subsidy per seat. So, and I can’t wait to do the math on this, what was the value of the original subsidy that gets this to the 195 number? I see cuts and percentages, but not the original grant this is based on.
I took a German course near Munich in 1974. We were told that, at that time, each seat at each performance at the Bavarian Opera was subsidized 80 DM, which works out to around $200 in today’s dollars.
And today, as it has been for many years, one of the world’s greatest opera house. I have been attending performances there on and off since 1972 and have always welcomed the high musical and production standards as well as the high proportion of young patrons, significantly younger than London opera audiences. I worked in Nuremberg for a month and one night I asked a 20-something why there was such a young audience: he said we go to the opera the way we go to the theatre, musicals and the cinema. There’s no “elitism”, no politicisation about opera, just an acceptance that as it’s an expensive art form if we want it we have to subsidise it or it will die, as clearly ENO will die.
yes, that is of course true to this day. Thankfully Germans realize that if the seats were not subsidized then Germans would be as stupid as Americans and Brits. The figures of what seats cost taxpayers is published in the local papers each year, for instance if you live in Bavaria, then you see what tickets cost in Augsburg, Regensburg, Passau Munich etc.
Glastonbury has sponsors though surely? And it’s only 5 days once a year with a break year every five years – very different from ENO. Would have been fairer to compare to a pop music venue of a similar capacity I think, even though that’s still not quite the same.
Well, if Glastonbury can get sponsors, why can’t ENO. It could be something to do with the fact that the music played at Glastonbury is extremely varied and very popular with the public, whereas, opera is a minority and elitist art form (I use that term loosely) that interests a very small number of people (me being one of them). Why opera should consider itself a “protected species” is beyond me, if they cannot attract an audience and rely on the general public to subsidise them then they need an introduction to the real world of employment. It is a sobering thought that the total number attending one Glastonbury Festival probably exceeds the total number of concert and opera goers throughout the UK for a whole year.
ENO has sponsors, though the list looks hardly prestigious or extensive… https://www.eno.org/support-us/current-supporters/
ENO have played Glastonbury.
Interestingly opera isn’t considered an elitist art form in all countries……
Glastonbury has sponsors, but then so too do arts charities. But the slightly misleading thing about that Glastonbury stat (which I’ve heard used by various media outlets today as a case for the ‘value-for-money” price rise) is that it would be impossible to see all the acts featured as they perform simultenously across multiple stages. In busy areas, it can take at least 40 minutes to move between stages, and sets run long into the night, meaning that only the hardiest will be awake long enough to take maximum advantage of the programming. Someone who chose not to lose time by picking a stage and sticking with it rather than moving across the site might see up to 30 acts over the course of the festival – though that still works out at a rather reasonable £11.33 per act, though the quality of experience really depends on what – for you – makes a good gig. If it’s a line up that appeals, it’s certainly a good way to see lots of bands cheaply. You suggested comparing to a similar sized pop-venue, and many of the regional O2 arenas are about that big. Tickets there tend to set you back between £25 and £65 depending on the status of the act. But you have to remember that there will most of the time be fewer than 20 performers involved, and they’ll see very little money from the ticket income. The model is very different…
In addition, it attracts vastly more than the 3000 a night who can fit into the Coliseum, so revenue is far higher, covering far more of the cost.
I don’t understand the point of comparing a theatre with Glastonbury.
What is “morally unsustainable” ?
Are not all high-level Art forms in one way or another ‘unsustainable’ (morally or not), hence the need for some form of public subsidy so some who might not otherwise have their lives changed forever for the good can experience it?
What ~is~ morally unsustainable, in my view, is before awarding a subsidy, ACE making all sorts of conditions (some of which are laudable, to be fair) and then, on seeing that ENO have complied with every single one, pulling the funding next time around [Government-forced?].
ENO wanted to tour, but ACE said no; so they performed instead at Alexandra Palace, as well as ENO. ‘Drive and Live’ may not have been for the purist, but I wager there were some there who would never otherwise have seen La Boheme.
ENO have also ensured that as fully as possible all the ACE-required conditions re Representation and various Outreach programmes (e.g. the subsidised children’s tickets you refer to), which they have done.
Put another way – had ENO chosen instead to stick to ‘opera of old’ akin to their glory days (as, say, opined here https://slippedisc.com/2022/11/remembering-eno-at-its-best/ ) ACE would have pulled the funding for not having adhered to their conditions.
You cannot have it both ways!
And while their plight may be the most obvious ones, it is not just the musicians (Chorus and Orchestra as well as booked soloists) who will now suffer by ENO’s closure.
Think too of the large number of necessary staff behind the scenes who all go into making a production: Costumes, Wigs, Hair and Make-Up, and Dressers to name a few.
These are all very gifted people whose craft is always seen, but never (or very rarely) highlighted. Where will they go?
And then there are Lighting and Sound Engineers, Stage Hands etc. whose work may be able to be retained with the Theatre, but it is not guaranteed.
All of this costs money and unless it were to become ‘another ROH’ the notion that ENO’s endeavours to date are morally unsustainable is frankly a disgrace.
(And then to compare it to Glastonbury – where ENO Chorus and Orchestra performed not that long ago, don’t forget – when allowed to ‘tour’ is akin to comparing chalk with cheese and only lessens your argument thereby.)
ENO has its place in the Opera-making scene in London, as other Opera Companies have their place in their scenes around the country, and it is these who are now handed their own, unwanted or needed ‘stand-off’ between their own laudable endeavours and some ex-London company treading on their patch.
And finally (to the Government), as someone else said: ‘Levelling Up’ does not need to be a kind of algebraic see-saw with something else being ‘Levelled Down’ to balance.
Opera it is one of the highest art forms there is, and once ENO is lost to London, I challenge anyone to say they can get the same, even if only introductory, access to Opera at RoH as they once did at ENO.
Now ~that~ is morally unsustainable.
“I challenge anyone to say they can get the same, even if only introductory, access to Opera at RoH as they once did at ENO.”
Hmm
1 – Starting ticket price is actually lower at ROH (though not allowing for the given away and 75% discounted tickets). Seats with unrestricted views for £20, £20 and under £60.
2 – You have to have opera in English because you can’t understand the original language. Largely negated by having surtitles for all performances and singers still not being clearly understood even when singing in English (with surtitles). I saw my first opera at 10 – Barber of Seville at Sadler’s Wells. I don’t recall understanding a single word but read up on the plot from the programme. Italian opera in English is ghastly anyway – stresses, syllables and rhymes simply don’t work. German is generally fine.
3 – Tickets were once difficult to buy unless you were a mailing list member or went to the Box Office in person. Since internet booking, and, except for the most prestigious casts, now generally freely available.
4 – I may be wrong but I think ROH runs more introductory events and educational programmes for schools than ENO ever has.
Absolutely. Reminds me of the comment Tory MP and former Chancellor Ken Clarke made about the Tory right……. it’s like feeding buns to a crocodile. It will eat them, but when you run out of buns it will eat you anyway.
Maybe hard to stomach but a necessary assessment, particularly this: “The ENO board is made up mostly of financiers and hedge-funders. They have failed to justify their presence with substantial donations.”
Too many UK arts organisations have adopted this Americanised approach to Board-building, without realising the necessary return in fundraising revenue and organisational advancement. In the end, le beau monde feather their caps while once worthy organisations decline. Shameful.
I would go so far as to say that the continuation of ENO subsidised by ACE i.e the taxpayers is a kick in the teeth to those companies who have equally struggled to remain afloat during the last hard pressed years.
If the board of financiers and Hedge Fund Managers are desperate to see ENO continue then let them take it over and run it as a commercial concern. After all, they were put there if not for their cultural then their financial acumen. But of course that’s a non starter because if they know nothing else it must be that ENO is broken and why would they tip their own money into the bottomless put when the taxpayer has until now done just that?
Any future that ENO has within the public domain will be at the expense of others who currently rely on state subvention. If it is important that it continues then part of the case should be that it is self funding and it’s business model does not rely on handouts from anyone but the private sector. We’d then see how long it could survive and its board would have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.
It grieves me to say this, but I agree with you. Whatever form the company takes in the future it must be sensible not a knee jerk solution.
I do not think ENO should be allowed to go under. Sorry Norman – I cannot agree with your stance on this.
Agreed. ENO must go. It has shown over the past several years how NOT to run an opera house. And, by definition, that makes it unworthy of public funds.
Also agreed: ENO has been a wonderful house with countless wonderful productions that have created countless grand memories for me. It’s always sad when something beloved atrophies, gets hollowed out, and then, basically, dies.
Perhaps the concept that was ENO can be recreated or live on in another, currently funded ensemble.
Surely Glastonbury is subsidised by the BBC? They buy the tv rights for the whole weekend and send hoards of staff members.
The simple answer is to reverse the roles of Sadler’s Wells and the Coliseum…Let Eno go back to its roots and let the Coliseum become the home for larger scale ballet demands.
Or maybe even share the space, as do Royal Ballet and Royal Opera?
There already exists a touring opera company that trains young British artists (please define that, too ) it’s called English Touring Opera.
Glyndebourne Touring and Welsh National (until both had their touring budget removed last week – mystery).
Farewell , wonderful ENO pollocked and brunjed ino oblivion after so many wonderful years.
I agree, the “Eglish” National Opera must certainly go. As for the ENGLISH National Opera, I couldn’t disagree more – though I suspect that the author of this column has more inclination towards removing comments rather than proofreading their articles for not only spelling but moral mishaps… London needs the ENO, period. Young people need to be encouraged to watch opera – without them, the artform itself will die! It’s been long proven that subsidies towards arts are causally linked to economic growth and prosperity. ENO provides ACCESS to opera, and its access that allows for true “Levelling Up”. Sure that is morally sustainable?
Perhaps London needs something better than the current ENO.
Excellent analysis, NL. I’ve had many great evenings at ENO, but few of those have been in this millennium. I know that opera is hideously expensive, and usually agree to add a donation on top of the cost of my ticket. But the “(no) magic fire” debacle at last season’s Valkyrie indicated that ENO’s management is both incompetent and disrespectful towards its (dwindling) audience.
Incompetent because, if you are planning an impressive display of real fire in an old theatre, SURELY the thing to do is engage with the relevant regulatory body (in this case Westminster Council) MONTHS before the first night, and continue to engage with them to ensure that they are happy with the proposed approach?
Disrespectful because it would have been relatively easy to achieve a credible, creditable and safe simulation of magic fire, even at short notice, for example by using dry ice and high-brightness LEDs. But no, the ENO’s Artistic Director came before the curtain and told us to use our imagination. I can only conclude that the Designer must have said, “Well, if I can’t have MY magic fire then you shan’t have ANY magic fire!”.
Pathetic.
ACE has surrendered to a musically and operatically philistine government, which knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Why this fear of Manchester? One of this country’s major problems is that it is over centralised. With imagination the ENO could form a sustainable base in Manchester and become more proactive around the country. Reading these emails I have concluded that Londoners are incapable of thinking within the national interest: selfish and inward looking to the core. But does Manchester want a company that currently has little imagination and is led by such an inappropriate Board?
I deplore the constant, harping negativity towards ENO from NL, in a leading classical music blog.
ENO, like performing arts organisations throughout the country, has been struggling under the burden of massive public funding cuts since 2010. It is nigh impossible to produce as much work of the same quality as before. If we don’t always get the greatest management and board members, is it any wonder, when they constantly have to produce more for less AND endure this kind of sniping. Accountability yes, unreasonable negativity, no thank you.
And if course it’s a shock! It has shocked all of us who work in the arts. That doesn’t mean it’s a total surprise – there is an important semantic distinction and an experienced journalist like NL surely knows that.
And on the funding decision itself, politicians, if they take any interest, must be rubbing their hands with glee at this in-fighting. They’re the real villains of the piece. Throwing out a smaller amount of sustenance and watching people fighting among themselves for the scraps. Appalling.
Unfortunately Norman is quite right – really honest assessment! The Arts Council has been warning for many years that things had to change and they haven’t. It is a great shame – many of us remember when the company was a full time company performing for ten months of the year about 30 operas on a much smaller subsidy, comparatively, than today!