Why British opera must go back to the drawing board
Opera in Britain needs a new business model – over the past decade, it’s been both declining and expanding in ways that cannot be sustained. On the one hand, subsidised companies have lost about a third of their public funding to austerity cuts and seen previously loyal audiences moving irreversibly to the convenience of HD cinema relays; on the other hand, there’s been a boom in country-house festivals, many of them producing truly excellent work but “accessible” only to a social elite who can afford to spend £500 on two tickets and dinner. The 20th-century ideal, promoted by Keynesian socialists, of using taxpayers’ money to present live opera of high quality at low prices to people of all classes appears doomed, if not moribund.
The one convincing alternative to the existing scenarios is offered by Opera Holland Park. If you’re not aware of this admirable organisation, I should explain that it functions over a two-month summer season in a canopied (and heated) auditorium and stage that uses the handsome ruined façade of Holland House as its backdrop.
Formerly managed directly by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, it was bade farewell with a generous package of advantageous terms when it became an independent charitable trust in 2015. But it receives no money from the Arts Council, and has been cushioned for several years by an exemplary sponsorship deal with the city firm Investec.
Opera Holland Park manages to sell 98 per cent of its seats (the auditorium holds 1,000) at prices ranging from £18 to £77, with plenty of concessions for young and old and disadvantaged. Four operas are programmed each year, alongside some outreach work for children and neighbouring communities. Every performance offers a great night out – not an intimidating parade of glamour and wealth like Glyndebourne, but fun and special, in a lovely setting surrounded by gardens, lawns and woodland.
Artistic standards are high and adventurous, with popular repertory balanced by rarities and youthful talent promoted. Although they don’t pay top fees, singers of the calibre of Elizabeth Llewellyn, Anne Sophie Duprels, Ben Johnson, Peter Hoare, Nicky Spence and Ashley Riches are happy to be on the roster. Along with many of my colleagues in other papers and blogs, I’ve given four stars to both productions I have reviewed this year, including the current show, Leoncavallo’s seldom heard Zazà. It runs for one more week, and I recommend it highly.
James Clutton and Michael Volpe, Opera Holland Park’s long-serving and dedicated artistic and executive directors, both come from outside the operatic establishment: prior to taking the reins, Clutton was a commercial theatre producer, and Michael Volpe a local government employee. They are canny idealists whose motto is “as little bull---- as possible” and like good maîtres d’, they seem to be everywhere at once, no detail escaping their eagle eyes. They are big personalities, and people like working for them.
But what makes their OHP uniquely viable is its elimination of inessentials. It has no expensive building to maintain and its outgoings are minimal. The permanent staff is only 16. Chorus and orchestra are hired freelance for the season, production budgets are pared to the bone and, though nobody could accuse the stagings of being short of colourful spectacle, nothing is wasted on gloss.
Contrast this light-footed creature with the elephantine English National Opera, an outfit that has suffered at least five near meltdowns in the past quarter-century and made repeated recourse to financial life-support machines.
Now producing something approaching half the number of performances per year it did 20 years ago, it is lumbered with inalienable ownership of the London Coliseum, a huge and impractical West End theatre offering no office or rehearsal space and only limited catering facilities. It employs more than 320 on full-time contracts, including a symphony orchestra and a chorus contracted for nine months of the year. Its rocky finances have stabilised in the past year, but they depend absolutely on £12million from the Arts Council (ie the taxpayer) and renting the Coliseum to visiting companies that dilute the brand. Despite the subsidy, its top price for tickets is £125 – £48 more than OHP.
ENO has no right to call itself “national”, as it never leaves London and imports a great many of its solo singers from the United States. Its policy of singing everything in English (with subtitles) is not what the public wants, and in any case makes no sense in a huge barn of an auditorium with erratic acoustics.
Yes, ENO can (and does) still present work of a polish and sophistication to which the rougher and readier OHP cannot aspire, but that is part of the problem: its aspiration to rival the Royal Opera House and win Olivier Awards with ground-breaking work conflicts with its need to be affordable and popular, the pressures on public funding and the weight of its administration. The business model doesn’t make sense.
If the Arts Council – without whose munificence the company could not survive – dared to be truly radical, it would close the company down by withdrawing its subvention, find better uses for the Coliseum and go back to the drawing board.
A re-conceived English National Opera – more productive and agile, less pretentious and expensive – could take some useful lessons from Opera Holland Park. And who better to take the reins than James Clutton and Michael Volpe?