Opera in Great Britain is currently in an existential crisis.
In the last round of funding from the government’s main funding agency, the budgets of many of the largest opera institutions across the country were cut. Others have had their funding completely withdrawn unless they are prepared to move outside the capital.
The Arts Council England (ACE) is the organization responsible for allocating government funding to art across the UK. ACE has an annual round of funding for its National Organizational Portfolio (NPOs). This is where much of ACE’s annual funding goes, and it’s an important way art institutions operate in the UK.
When ACE announced its latest allocation of NPO funding, there was an immediate stir when a trend began to emerge.
Opera in crisis
In an attempt to “improve” the country, ACE was told to prioritize funding for organizations outside London and focus more on organizations from the North. While the British capital has dominated the cultural sector for too long, this has resulted in many London-based organizations losing important funding overnight — including some major British opera organizations.
One of the largest opera institutions in Great Britain is Glyndebourne. The annual Glyndebourne festival, which takes place in a manor house in a borderland, primarily attracts guests from London. Glyndebourne also gives an annual tour with performances in Milton Keynes, Canterbury, Norwich and Liverpool. The tour and its learning and engagement work are supported by ACE funding. ACE funding was cut in half this year.
However, the official press release from the opera house stated that they still had a technically successful application.
“Glyndebourne was offered annual financing of 800,000 GBP (approx. 930,000€) per year between 2023 and 2026. Our annual funding from the Arts Council in the previous NPO funding period (2018 — 2022) amounted to 1.6 million pounds (approx. 1.8 million euros) per year,” says a press release.
Before full instructions are available, Glyndebourne hasn’t officially explained how they must manage their entire program of events and tours since the cut.
“We may need to do things differently. What won’t change is our commitment to remain a year-round company and achieve our core goal of enriching the lives of as many people as possible through opera,” they said.
Forcing an opera to move
The English National Opera (ENO), based in London, faces an even more difficult situation.
ENO’s entire ACE funding, a £12.8 million (approximately €14.9 million) grant, has been canceled. It will only receive ACE funding if it is to move to a base in the North, ideally Manchester. If this is the case, ACE will provide the company with 17 million pounds (approximately 19.7 million euros) over a period of three years.
It did not take into account how many people work for ENO in London, nor the other funding options, which could depend on the location of the opera in London.
A spokesperson for ENO explains that in a similar situation when Birmingham Royal Ballet moved from London in the 80s, the move was made after five years of consultation with the audience, staff and its new home.
“It is not feasible to ask us to start moving our entire base, a workforce of 300 full-time employees who are experts in their fields, in just five months and only have some of the funding available to make this move possible,” the spokesperson said.
There was no consultation with a venue in Manchester for the planned ENO move.
“This points to a serious lack of strategy or care for regions outside London on the part of the Arts Council and its Chairman Sir Nick Serota and CEO Darren Henley.”
In the latest available ENO annual report, ACE’s annual grant accounts for just over a third of the money the organization brings in. The rest comes from ticket sales, sponsorships, retail partners and other donations.
If ENO were funded entirely by the government, their application would be more reasonable. As it stands, the only risk is that the organization will evade without clear means of survival.
Allegations of elitism
This is part of the larger trend, in which ACE has cut funding for art in London by 50 million pounds (around 58 million euros). The specific orientation of the opera is primarily due to the fact that ACE and pressure from the government behind it regard the art form as “elitist.”
In response to criticism of funding cuts for ENO and Glyndebourne, Darren Henley has claimed that the focus must be on the future of opera.
“A new generation of viewers is welcoming opera and musical theatre presented in a new way: opera in parking lots, opera in pubs, opera on your tablet. New ideas may seem heretical to traditionalists, but fresh thinking helps the art form reinvent itself and remain exciting and meaningful for future generations of viewers and artists,” Henley wrote in The Guardian.
Speaking to CNNBreakingNews.net Culture, an ENO spokesperson explained that the opera house has not yet been “given any clarity as to why they have cut opera so drastically across the UK.”
“While we fully support the government’s agenda to increase leveling, no data or clarity was provided in the ACE decision-making process when these cuts were made for the opera industry. Asking us to relocate our base while granting us a 55% cut in funding is not in line with the government’s agenda, which suggests that sites outside London don’t deserve a fully funded ENO, which we completely disagree with.”
ENO goes on to state that they have exceeded all targets set by ACE for their funding.
There are also good reasons to reject claims of elitism and lack of public engagement on the part of ENO, according to the report.
“The work of the English National Opera is crucial in bringing a new and diverse audience to opera. We sing opera in English and are committed to removing other obstacles that stand in the way of an opera experience. We offer free tickets for kids under 21, huge discounts for kids under 35, and tickets starting at just £10 (€11) for everyone.”
This work paid off, they say, as 51 percent were first-time bookers last season, along with the music education program “Finish This,” which reached 6,500 schoolchildren across the country.
The anti-elitism of German opera
Outside Great Britain, opera is in a completely different conversation. In France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, the public interest of opera as an art form is less declining.
Questions of elitism are not applicable at the Bavarian National Opera in Munich, explains managing director Serge Dorny.
Dorny was born in Belgium and knows the British opera scene well. Before Dorny took over as general director of the Bavarian National Opera in 2021, he was general director and artistic director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also often brought his orchestra to Glyndebourne for the opera festival.
For Dorny, every claim to elitism should be viewed in two different dimensions: financial elitism and intellectual elitism.
Being financially elitist means forbidding people from diverse backgrounds from engaging in art through high costs and uncomplicated programs.
“The public financier must of course make a contribution so that the art form has the opportunity to be accessible at a reasonable price,” says Dorny. “But the funding situation in the UK has always been pretty mediocre for opera houses.”
from Opera is expensive. It combines elements of theatre, orchestra, dance, and stage design, all for an audience limited to the capacity of the auditorium. Making opera financially affordable will therefore always be a burden on the state, says Dorny.
“If the public financier doesn’t contribute to such an extent that access to exactly this form is made available at an appropriate entry level, then it will of course be elitist,” he says.
“The financing situation in Great Britain has always been very poor and is not similar to the one we are experiencing in continental Europe,” Dorny continues.
Each year, Germany provided around 10 billion euros in public funding for art. This helps the over 80 opera houses across the country. Not every ticket is affordable, of course, but there is enough that almost everyone, anywhere in Germany, can access the art form.
“In our opinion, art is an asset. It must be accessible because it contributes to building and developing our society,” says Dorny.
The other form of elitism Dorny mentions is intellectual elitism. In his opinion, Opera should do even more in this regard.
Should opera be “intellectually demanding and therefore questioning and thought-provoking”?
Absolutely, Dorny argues.
“In that sense, I would say elitism can be a very positive word. It is almost the opposite of populism,” he says.
The Bavarian National Opera’s program continues to record classic operas and reinterpret them for a modern audience. It wants and attracts a diverse audience by creating classic and new works that are relevant to them. Dorny notes, however, that it is important that it never shies away from difficult topics.
“We suggest an opera that questions and addresses contemporary issues so that a community can experience something and deal with it,” says Dorny. “I hope it can be elitist for everyone and accessible to everyone.”
If London loses the ENO, all that remains is the Royal Opera House, which Dorny claims is the truly elite house. By forcing Dorny to move without providing him with enough funds, he points the accusation of elitism at ACE himself.
“They make opera inaccessible through their own actions, which makes it elitist,” he says. “If they watch funding cut, they’re creating an impossible future for the arts.”
Opera in Great Britain is currently in an existential crisis.
In the last round of funding from the government’s main funding agency, the budgets of many of the largest opera institutions across the country were cut. Others have had their funding completely withdrawn unless they are prepared to move outside the capital.
The Arts Council England (ACE) is the organization responsible for allocating government funding to art across the UK. ACE has an annual round of funding for its National Organizational Portfolio (NPOs). This is where much of ACE’s annual funding goes, and it’s an important way art institutions operate in the UK.
When ACE announced its latest allocation of NPO funding, there was an immediate stir when a trend began to emerge.
Opera in crisis
In an attempt to “improve” the country, ACE was told to prioritize funding for organizations outside London and focus more on organizations from the North. While the British capital has dominated the cultural sector for too long, this has resulted in many London-based organizations losing important funding overnight — including some major British opera organizations.
One of the largest opera institutions in Great Britain is Glyndebourne. The annual Glyndebourne festival, which takes place in a manor house in a borderland, primarily attracts guests from London. Glyndebourne also gives an annual tour with performances in Milton Keynes, Canterbury, Norwich and Liverpool. The tour and its learning and engagement work are supported by ACE funding. ACE funding was cut in half this year.
However, the official press release from the opera house stated that they still had a technically successful application.
“Glyndebourne was offered annual financing of 800,000 GBP (approx. 930,000€) per year between 2023 and 2026. Our annual funding from the Arts Council in the previous NPO funding period (2018 — 2022) amounted to 1.6 million pounds (approx. 1.8 million euros) per year,” says a press release.
Before full instructions are available, Glyndebourne hasn’t officially explained how they must manage their entire program of events and tours since the cut.
“We may need to do things differently. What won’t change is our commitment to remain a year-round company and achieve our core goal of enriching the lives of as many people as possible through opera,” they said.
Forcing an opera to move
The English National Opera (ENO), based in London, faces an even more difficult situation.
ENO’s entire ACE funding, a £12.8 million (approximately €14.9 million) grant, has been canceled. It will only receive ACE funding if it is to move to a base in the North, ideally Manchester. If this is the case, ACE will provide the company with 17 million pounds (approximately 19.7 million euros) over a period of three years.
It did not take into account how many people work for ENO in London, nor the other funding options, which could depend on the location of the opera in London.
A spokesperson for ENO explains that in a similar situation when Birmingham Royal Ballet moved from London in the 80s, the move was made after five years of consultation with the audience, staff and its new home.
“It is not feasible to ask us to start moving our entire base, a workforce of 300 full-time employees who are experts in their fields, in just five months and only have some of the funding available to make this move possible,” the spokesperson said.
There was no consultation with a venue in Manchester for the planned ENO move.
“This points to a serious lack of strategy or care for regions outside London on the part of the Arts Council and its Chairman Sir Nick Serota and CEO Darren Henley.”
In the latest available ENO annual report, ACE’s annual grant accounts for just over a third of the money the organization brings in. The rest comes from ticket sales, sponsorships, retail partners and other donations.
If ENO were funded entirely by the government, their application would be more reasonable. As it stands, the only risk is that the organization will evade without clear means of survival.
Allegations of elitism
This is part of the larger trend, in which ACE has cut funding for art in London by 50 million pounds (around 58 million euros). The specific orientation of the opera is primarily due to the fact that ACE and pressure from the government behind it regard the art form as “elitist.”
In response to criticism of funding cuts for ENO and Glyndebourne, Darren Henley has claimed that the focus must be on the future of opera.
“A new generation of viewers is welcoming opera and musical theatre presented in a new way: opera in parking lots, opera in pubs, opera on your tablet. New ideas may seem heretical to traditionalists, but fresh thinking helps the art form reinvent itself and remain exciting and meaningful for future generations of viewers and artists,” Henley wrote in The Guardian.
Speaking to CNNBreakingNews.net Culture, an ENO spokesperson explained that the opera house has not yet been “given any clarity as to why they have cut opera so drastically across the UK.”
“While we fully support the government’s agenda to increase leveling, no data or clarity was provided in the ACE decision-making process when these cuts were made for the opera industry. Asking us to relocate our base while granting us a 55% cut in funding is not in line with the government’s agenda, which suggests that sites outside London don’t deserve a fully funded ENO, which we completely disagree with.”
ENO goes on to state that they have exceeded all targets set by ACE for their funding.
There are also good reasons to reject claims of elitism and lack of public engagement on the part of ENO, according to the report.
“The work of the English National Opera is crucial in bringing a new and diverse audience to opera. We sing opera in English and are committed to removing other obstacles that stand in the way of an opera experience. We offer free tickets for kids under 21, huge discounts for kids under 35, and tickets starting at just £10 (€11) for everyone.”
This work paid off, they say, as 51 percent were first-time bookers last season, along with the music education program “Finish This,” which reached 6,500 schoolchildren across the country.
The anti-elitism of German opera
Outside Great Britain, opera is in a completely different conversation. In France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, the public interest of opera as an art form is less declining.
Questions of elitism are not applicable at the Bavarian National Opera in Munich, explains managing director Serge Dorny.
Dorny was born in Belgium and knows the British opera scene well. Before Dorny took over as general director of the Bavarian National Opera in 2021, he was general director and artistic director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also often brought his orchestra to Glyndebourne for the opera festival.
For Dorny, every claim to elitism should be viewed in two different dimensions: financial elitism and intellectual elitism.
Being financially elitist means forbidding people from diverse backgrounds from engaging in art through high costs and uncomplicated programs.
“The public financier must of course make a contribution so that the art form has the opportunity to be accessible at a reasonable price,” says Dorny. “But the funding situation in the UK has always been pretty mediocre for opera houses.”
from Opera is expensive. It combines elements of theatre, orchestra, dance, and stage design, all for an audience limited to the capacity of the auditorium. Making opera financially affordable will therefore always be a burden on the state, says Dorny.
“If the public financier doesn’t contribute to such an extent that access to exactly this form is made available at an appropriate entry level, then it will of course be elitist,” he says.
“The financing situation in Great Britain has always been very poor and is not similar to the one we are experiencing in continental Europe,” Dorny continues.
Each year, Germany provided around 10 billion euros in public funding for art. This helps the over 80 opera houses across the country. Not every ticket is affordable, of course, but there is enough that almost everyone, anywhere in Germany, can access the art form.
“In our opinion, art is an asset. It must be accessible because it contributes to building and developing our society,” says Dorny.
The other form of elitism Dorny mentions is intellectual elitism. In his opinion, Opera should do even more in this regard.
Should opera be “intellectually demanding and therefore questioning and thought-provoking”?
Absolutely, Dorny argues.
“In that sense, I would say elitism can be a very positive word. It is almost the opposite of populism,” he says.
The Bavarian National Opera’s program continues to record classic operas and reinterpret them for a modern audience. It wants and attracts a diverse audience by creating classic and new works that are relevant to them. Dorny notes, however, that it is important that it never shies away from difficult topics.
“We suggest an opera that questions and addresses contemporary issues so that a community can experience something and deal with it,” says Dorny. “I hope it can be elitist for everyone and accessible to everyone.”
If London loses the ENO, all that remains is the Royal Opera House, which Dorny claims is the truly elite house. By forcing Dorny to move without providing him with enough funds, he points the accusation of elitism at ACE himself.
“They make opera inaccessible through their own actions, which makes it elitist,” he says. “If they watch funding cut, they’re creating an impossible future for the arts.”