What a banker thinks English National Opera should do
NewsHuw van Steenis is Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive of UBS. Before that he was Senior Advisor to Mark Carney, when he was Governor at the Bank of England. He is also a trustee of ENO.
In an op-ed in the Times today, he attacks the Arts Council’s ex-London plan for the company. Less positively, he offers no alternative.
He begins:
What do you do when all the energy you’ve put into performing over many years is suddenly threatened? That’s how the amazing singers, musicians and technicians of the English National Opera feel. They’ve been told they have only 20 weeks left at the Coliseum in London.
And ends:
Audiences, artists, musicians and technicians all deserve better. The government and Arts Council need to think again and do a proper analysis of opera and audiences across the country — and show their workings, because this looks arbitrary. Opera is the embodiment of an essential human instinct: telling stories through music. Comedies, histories, and tragedies. The ENO wants to keep telling them to everyone.
And that’s it?
Here’s a pic, possibly more effective, from today’s pro-ENO demo.
Inevitably a successor for Andrew Bailey’s job.
If you look at the reader comments below this piece in The Times, you will see a wide range of views expressed. By no means are they all sympathetic to ENO indeed two-thirds are against. Mr Van Steenis comes across as entitled and arrogant and that is the problem with the board.
Yes it was the same under a Guardian article about it. Lot of people not bothered about a London venue getting defunded as they see the funding distribution as so unfair already. (I think that’s totally legit, I just wonder whether ENO being cut will actually help anyone outside London.)
‘as they see the funding distribution as so unfair already. (I think that’s totally legit’
But as Matias points out below, the full story is not disclosed.
Most people, in my experience, have little understanding of the issue. If you look at subsidy per attendance for instance, (according to figures published a few years ago) the highest subsidy goes to the Midlands, not London. In normal times London receives a huge number of commuters and tourists which make venues viable, and there is only one large city in the South East. Funding in the SE outside London is below average.
You could argue, of course, that this is a circular argument, but as pointed out by several people on this site, nobody has asked Manchester if it actually wants ENO.
The more I hear about this, the more it seems that this is a badly thought out political move by the Government, with little or no concern for opera. It would explain the cut to Glyndebourne Touring – many people will see this as a well deserved cut to ‘toffs’ opera’, not realising that the touring wing is a separate operation, with no Sussex ‘toffs’ involved.
‘indeed two-thirds are against’
I don’t have access but, if it follows the usual pattern, it will be ‘pay for your own entertainment’, ‘opera should stand on its own two feet’, ‘rich elites’, ‘why not football/pop’ etc.
And does The Times bother to explain that subsidies are about better access for poorer people to an art form which is intrinsically expensive? Maybe, but probably not.
Good to find a cultured banker who looks beyond spreadsheets and corporate bull***t.
If only we could find an Arts Council employee who did the same.
Probably hard to pivot to the US model where there is very little government funding for the arts but maybe it is worth a try. Foundations, businesses, and the more fortunate may be willing to support opera in English, programs for schools, etc., which can be leveraged to help shore up the overall finances of ENO. It’s hard to see what else they can do to avoid government dictates.
Another ENO Board member devoid of any sense of responsibility for the company’s calamity.
I wonder if Board members, like bankers, are taught basic Latin, such as ‘mea culpa’?
In any case, a UBS lunch bill would fund ENO for a decade but shamefully the UK corporate sector seem interested only in self-enrichment.
Easy for a failed board member to say. But where were you the last 8 years with disastrous decisions? You failed, matey, Goodbye.
Now that Glyndebourne and WNO will no longer be touring to Liverpool, that leaves the city with no opera at all! Is that what is meant by ‘levelling up’?