• Share on Facebook
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Linkedin
  • Share by email
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Linkedin
  • Share by email

After months of speculation, leaks and heated argument, a plan has been drawn up setting out the future of Scottish Opera. The troubled national company will receive a recovery package totalling £7m and in return will make nearly half its staff redundant and give up its control of the Theatre Royal Glasgow.

Scottish Opera has been in negotiations with the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and the Scottish Executive since it was revealed earlier this year (ArtsProfessional issue 68, February 23) that the company required an advance of £4.5m of its 2004/2005 funding. The beleaguered company undertook an organisational review aimed at cost-cutting and at finding ways of delivering on the Executive and SAC’s stated aim of improving its education provision. Finally, last month the company drafted a plan for recovery and sustainability, which has now been approved by the Executive and endorsed by SAC.

Under the terms of the agreement, the company will fulfil its programmed work through to June 2005 and will then go dark until March 2006 to implement restructuring and development. Transitional costs are expected to total between £6m and £7m and 88 full-time posts will be cut; most at threat are technical and administrative staff, and the 34-strong chorus. Unions have reacted angrily to the news. Equity General Secretary Ian McGarry commented: “Rather than a rescue plan, this could be the death of opera of an international standing in Scotland. If the management succeed in their plans to sack these experienced and talented choristers, the singers will have no choice but to leave Scotland to find other work. Personally, I find it astonishing that the very management team which got Scottish Opera into such an appalling financial mess is now being given a further £7m of public funds to wind down the company.”

While Scottish Opera has required a number of stabilisation packages in the recent past, much of the responsibility for the current financial situation has been blamed on the critically acclaimed but budget-busting production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 2003. The joint statement from Scottish Opera, SAC and the Executive is weighted with demands for increased accountability and more outreach work from the company. The funding boost is stated as being “subject to the Board and management ensuring that strong financial and business planning controls are in place to keep to the agreed business plan and available funding. The Scottish Arts Council will work closely with Scottish Opera in implementing the plan.”

Coinciding, as they have, with the Scottish Executive’s announcement of a Cultural Commission to investigate the state of the arts in Scotland, the problems at Scottish Opera have been brought to the forefront of the argument about the Executive’s role in cultural provision. More than 50 arts luminaries wrote an open letter to First Minister Jack McConnell decrying the attitude of the devolved government to culture – epitomised by under-funding for Scottish Opera. Shortly after, to the chagrin of senior managers at Scottish Opera, newspaper reports revealed confidential details of the Executive’s bail out package, a leak widely attributed to Mr McConnell’s office. Opposition parties have been quick to capitalise on the funding furore. The Scottish National Party’s Shadow Culture Minister, Roseanna Cunningham MSP said: “[This] statement will cast serious doubts over the long-term future of Scottish Opera… The Scottish Executive cannot continue to give with one hand and take with the other as this does not solve the problem.”