AndrewMellor asks how the opera ecosystem can survive outside the country house model if ACE keeps cutting support for urban touring.
Two newspaper articles from the weekend lingered heavy in my mind on the Monday morning I sat down to write this month’s column. In a canny piece of reporting for The Times, Richard Morrison had looked into the existential threat facing Welsh National Opera following the reduction by 35 per cent of its grant from Arts Council England.
Morrison had managed to glean that ACE has offered WNO ‘transition money’ (a cash parachute which will land you on the same treacherous financial ground but make the experience seem a little less painful) on the proviso that it axe a quarter of its orchestra and a third of its chorus. A raft of opera stars including Kiri Te Kanawa had subsequently signed an open letter to The Times claiming ACE was effectively engineering the demise of the 77-year-old company. Plenty see ACE up to the same tricks with ENO...Keep reading on Gramophone.
Two newspaper articles from the weekend lingered heavy in my mind on the Monday morning I sat down to write this month’s column. In a canny piece of reporting for The Times, Richard Morrison had looked into the existential threat facing Welsh National Opera following the reduction by 35 per cent of its grant from Arts Council England.
Morrison had managed to glean that ACE has offered WNO ‘transition money’ (a cash parachute which will land you on the same treacherous financial ground but make the experience seem a little less painful) on the proviso that it axe a quarter of its orchestra and a third of its chorus. A raft of opera stars including Kiri Te Kanawa had subsequently signed an open letter to The Times claiming ACE was effectively engineering the demise of the 77-year-old company. Plenty see ACE up to the same tricks with ENO...Keep reading on Gramophone.