Facts: how opera is funded in England
OperaRising concern about Arts Cancel England (ACE) has prompted librarians at the House of Lords to prepare a really useful couple of charts on how opera has been centrally funded over the past eight years.
Among striking statistics:
– Welsh National Opera has lost just over half of its funding
– The Royal Opera House is down one-third
– The National Opera Studio has been stripped of one-quarter of its support
– Birmingham Opera Company is up 80 percent.
See here.
Photo credit: Ted’s Grooming Room, 33 Great Queen Street London
Blame it on Brexit and Boris Johnson.
Actually, opera started losing popularity in the UK in 1740’s, during Handel’s lifetime. UK people prefer lighter entertainment like Gilbert & Sullivan and stuff like that.
1. Gilbert & Sullivan *is* opera.
2. Yes, blame it on Brexit and Boris Johnson by all means – it saves thinking and will get you a cheap cheer from the usual suspects – but the political war on opera and classical music in the UK started in earnest in 1997 and has been pursued by all parties ever since. The left-wing devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland have led the way in attacking opera.
If G&S is real opera why aren’t opera houses doing it? It’s musical theater like Rodgers & Hammerstein.
This is about opera in England, not the UK!!!
The train wreck of a fly-on-the-wall series – The Royal Opera House – is available on Youtube, all 6 episodes.
Those unfamiliar with it will almost certainly enjoy it. It was shot in 1995 and, as with all such series, it has been edited to focus on the problems, rather than the achievements.
The time will come when Glyndebourne will be the only opera house in the UK, as it relies on private patronage and not government subsidy.
Perhaps other houses could learn from the recent Glyndebourne production of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine when it comes to reducing the cost of sets and costumes, not to mention, in this case the singers?
Unless ACE’s next move is to decide that the LPO and OAE are no longer “relevant”, and appeal to all the wrong people.
But perhaps not their next move, that will be reserved for ballet.