Pitting opera against pop music is unhelpful, unfair and flawed
Pop critic James Hall gives short shrift to claims that commercial music deserves more public funding
Pop music has always been played by loners and outsiders, ever since Johnny B Goode sat alone beneath the tree by the Louisiana railroad track and strummed his guitar in Chuck Berry’s 1958 song. Opera, on the other hand, is one of the world’s most people-intensive art forms, often involving hundreds of performers and musicians.
Which is why I find it strange that the boss of the organisation that claims to represent the UK’S entire music industry has this week heavily criticised the Arts Council for spending too much money on “posh” opera and not enough on pop.
According to Michael Dugher, the former Labour MP who is now the chief executive of UK Music, it is “manifestly unjust” that for every £1 awarded to pop music, £8 goes to opera. Dugher has called the situation “deeply flawed and unfair”. The Arts Council risks being seen as “too posh for pop” and he has demanded a review so that “all types of music are treated fairly”.
But while this may seem surprising coming from a pop critic, I’m not only unconvinced by his argument, but I think it is incredibly unhelpful to pit one form against the other.
On the basis of numbers alone, it is nonsense to compare the two. Per performance, opera involves far more people. It therefore stands to reason that its funding is higher. Flicking through two random opera programmes bears this out. A recent production of Verdi’s Otello at the Royal Opera House had a cast of 60 while Strauss’s Salome at the ENO had a cast of 26. Add the orchestra and production crew, and you’re talking north of 100 people in many productions. On the flip side, this summer Ed Sheeran, the world’s biggest pop star, will play to over a million people in UK stadiums completely alone, armed with just a guitar and some effects pedals.
However, on top of this disparity, there’s a distasteful element to Dugher’s reverse snobbery and attempt to damn the Arts Council as elitist. I take issue with the “too posh for pop” argument for two reasons.
First, opera’s not “posh”. My wife was a professional opera singer before her current career as a television producer, and it’s simply not true that the people she worked with could be categorised in this way.
Perhaps Dugher means that the subject matter of operas is somehow elitist? Not in my experience. The operas that I’ve seen deal in big emotions that are as subtle as a sledgehammer. Which means he must be talking about the audiences. But arguing that funding should be allocated away from opera on the basis that its audiences are “posh” is a dangerous one indeed. Substitute the word “posh” for another character trait or category, and you can see how wrong that is.
Secondly, I dislike the “opera is elitist” argument because it implies that pop music is the opposite: only appreciated by the unwashed masses. This is tosh. Music played on a guitar or laptop can be far more complex and challenging than opera. Listen to Jimi Hendrix or Thom Yorke’s solo stuff and try arguing that it’s simple.
But for all that complexity, pop simply doesn’t need subsidy in the same way as opera. It’s a highly competitive commercial enterprise, which enjoys 24-hours-a-day airtime on radio and streaming platforms. Opera could only dream of such promotion.
Dugher is right in one sense. Pop music is being dealt a terrible hand by moneymen, but not entirely in the way that he suggests. Small music venues are closing at an alarming rate, and this is as much to do with punitive business rates, noise restrictions and property developers’ frenzied rush for gentrification, as the subsidy they do or don’t receive. If anything is “deeply flawed and unfair”, it is this.