Welsh National Opera issues desperate appeal
OperaThe company needs small change for the very basics:
We need your help, now more than ever. Whether it’s £15 to provide our Costume department with a month’s supply of thread or £50 to cover the MOTs of our touring trucks, your donation helps us to continue staging epic works that are Made in Wales.
How much to sponsor TWO new heads of the company?
Surely our new government will step in to support the WNO, which is a part of our national heritage – especially as it represents an ethnic minority within Britain…
Ethice minority? We were here first!
No, more interested in concreting over Victoria Tower Gardens – that’s politics
They’ll set up an action group to talk around the options and then set up a sub committee to explore the options and then appoint a diverse implementation group to go to Wales or wherever WNO are based and talk through with them how they are not doing enough outreach to the community.
Then they’ll report back through the various action groups to the DCMS who will decide that the Welsh Government need to be consulted as in the new devolved system of setting up committees to pass the buck to some other committee they need to decide just who the f#ck should save WNO from extinction.
The answer of course being produced in a 200 page consultation document. Lisa Nandy might get round to kicking it all off when she’s found a football regulator!
You’ve not been following the arts policies of the Labour administration in Cardiff, I take it…
The covering photo is of RWCMD and not of Wales Millennium Centre, home of WNO.
Contact the CSO and make a deal….they have a 400 million dollar endowment…just sitting there..
Well, it sits there generating returns, and probably funneling 5% each year to the orchestra’s operations.
Hoping for any bail out from those in the Senedd down in Corruption Bay is a big ask. They are appointing another 36 members at tax payers expense, first minister is resigning refusing to pay back the £200,000 given to him for his election, by someone who escaped jail, where did that money go?
The only time I have seen anyone from the Senedd at a classical music concert was Rhodri Morgan fast asleep in the front row.
Meanwhile WNO orchestra under Tomus Hanus gave a splendid concert to a full house in the hall shown. We do not want to lose WNO.
(That photo is RWCMD)
Billions on asylum seekers, but pennies for the arts.
I think you’re misunderstanding this.
Scottish opera does this quite successfully I think. You can sponsor a prop, get a mention in the programme. It’s quite an innovative approach – if you don’t like it or have more money you can always be a ‘friend’ just like before. I can’t afford that so sponsoring a prop is the next best thing.
It’s the beginning of the end of this deperate company
I dunno, maybe that current Prince of Wales, William, and his super rich father, King Charles III could help-out? Just sayin’?
Oh really?
Go please and ask your beloved chosen communist Labour party, for sure they will help you
I wish our new government were communist as far as arts policies are concerned! During their days in eastern Europe, they funded orchestras and opera houses so that anyone could afford to attend for a minimal price. Their policy was to regard culture as a heritage that should be available to everyone.
Yes, of course they persecuted composers and artists to produce what they wanted, and yes, they stamped out dissent – but in terms of access to, and support of, fine arts, they were far more generous than any government ever was in this country.
There is nothing NATIONAL about the Welsh National Opera. Shows in Cardiff, Swansea and Llandudno are not good enough. I’d be willing to support the company if it toured less lavish productions in the many smaller theatres around Wales. I don’t see why the inhabitants of Liverpool, Birmingham, Oxford and a host of other English cities should receive penny of subsidy from the people of Wales.
WNO is funded by Arts Council England when it plays in English venues.
WNO is the company that got me into opera with “Onegin”. I would like to see the receipts for whatever I was sponsoring as I sponsored a prop for Scottish Opera’s “Onegin”. Imagine my surprise at the performance when Tatyana wrote THE letter merely using a paper pad on her leg. According to the programme there were several sponsors of that prop. Not the worst directorial mess up I’ve seen though. The Kasper Holton Onegin for ROH had Lensky holding his duelling pistol at the start of his aria, when alone and before Onegin has arrived with the box of pistols to be used. That exchange got a big laugh when Zaretsky asked him to make his selection: not a usual reaction to the duel scene. I adore directors who fail to do their research, it demonstrates how much they love the art form and respect the audience.
This i snot desperation. It is good fundraising. Show potential donors at the lower end of the scale where a few pounds can make a tangible difference. This approach can be seen all over the arts. It is not a sign of financial ruin – just maximisation of the potential donor base.