Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the Arts Council’s total investment in our arts organisations, which amounts to many millions of pounds. Yet it accounts for ‘between 3 and 4 per cent of live audiences in theatres’. How can these figures possibly be justified? Especially when the art form is so obviously a plaything of the wealthy.
Once upon a time there was an organisation that had the intention of providing opera at reasonable prices to the less well-off. It was based in a poor part of London, where it pursued its ideals by presenting everything in English and emphasising the dramatic aspect of its chosen repertoire. From these roots the English National Opera has grown, which helps to explain why it is now in such trouble. Although it continues to perform everything in English, and hopes to employ young British singers, composers and designers whenever possible, it has badly lost its way.
Its ticket prices now rival those at Covent Garden and attract the kind of public for whom foreign languages are less of an inconvenience than for some.
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