Glyndebourne 2021 was ‘significantly loss-making’
NewsThe festival, which has just ended, has issued an end-of-summer summary.
It says, in part:
Glyndebourne was determined to proceed with its 2021 Festival and chose to invest in a significantly loss-making event in order to provide vital work for staff and freelancers and to stay connected to audiences. …
Despite the challenges, the company successfully presented five operas, including three new socially distanced productions from international creative teams – Káťa Kabanová, Il turco in Italia and Luisa Miller – and a concert series featuring the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
More than 41,000 people visited the event between May and August, with audiences for the first part of the season capped at 50% of capacity. A series of online operas broadcast via Glyndebourne Open House during the same period reached a further 115,000 people.
Why didn’t Glyndebourne have any live streaming this year? Couldn’t that have been a further source of income for them?
“A series of online operas broadcast via Glyndebourne Open House during the same period reached a further 115,000 people”. Isn’t that live streaming?
If Glyndebourne had only followed the Met’s fiscally responsible stewardship, it would have been a lot less loss-making.
As Milton Freedman famously said, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”; someone, somewhere, is subsidizing it.
A “loss-making” organization will not survive long and should not be proud of it, but hey, what the heck, so long as someone, somewhere, is subsidizing it.
“the Met’s fiscally responsible stewardship”…I nearly spit out my coffee! It took me a minute to realize you were being completely facetious. Good one.
That wind turbine!
The Met is probably the worst example to use. Unlike the Met Glyndebourne didn’t let go any staff and kept going when the Met has been closed and only keeps itself in the public’s mind by free relays of opera via its website.
A lot of us donated to Glyndebourne part of our ticket value last year because we know that they’re not subsidised. This year they got some money from the Covid recovery fund and unfortunately decided to drop social distancing mid season. But all in all they did a good job and the tour will start in a month’s time.
Whether subsidized or not, we should be glad Glyndebourne happened and people had work and income.
Glyndebourne showed itself to be a first class employer with social and moral conscience. It is vital that organisations like them are supported as their work spreads wider than staged performances. They are major support for young musicians and singers in this country.
Sorry but Gus Christie is a multi millionaire, they do not need handouts from the public as they made out with the constant begging. He could easily fund the losses made from his own pocket.