The basic messages from the recent announcement of funding from Arts Council England for 2023 to 2026 seem to be bleak – London orchestras’ grants down 10% (plus of course dealing with inflation during those years) except for the RPO and an increase for OAE; regional orchestras given the same funding as in 2022 i.e. again having to absorb inflation; a cut of 10% to Covent Garden, and Opera North given a modest increase (which is good). The only bit of substantively good news is the 20% increase in ETO’s budget.
The bad news is the removal of funding from ENO, with a transition grant to move to a regional centre, the slashing of WNO by more or less half (presumably meaning it can’t do England touring for the most part), and the halving of Glyndebourne Touring’s budget. Some of the cuts are reasonable – there ARE too many London orchestras, churning out programmes which are insufficiently distinguished from each other. ENO’s re-purposing and removal from London is sad but inevitable – someone more in the know than I am needs to write a think-piece on what went wrong over the last ?20 years. But it is certainly difficult to see a raison d’etre for it in its current form – the problem seems to be a dearthof leadership to do the re-imgining . The peculiarity is WNO’s and Glyndebourne Touring’s massive cuts – presumably intended to create a space for ENO in the provinces (maybe to tie up with Birmingham Opera) and focusing on West Midlands, South and South West plus Cheshire and Liverpool – maybe up the North West coast. Initial noise seemed to think about Manchester as a possible ENO site, but this is daft since that area and points North East are perfectly well served by Opera North. From a UK opera perspective, the net result will be less opportunities for work for UK singers and less opportunities for audiences to see opera – which sounds like a downwards spiral to me…………..
John's musical journey 