As opera companies struggle to survive, a sustained note of alarm

Recovery from pandemic has exacted brutal toll on the institutional art form

One of the things about institutions is that we tend to treat them as such — stable, essential structures that feel like part of the natural landscape, large enough that they attain a kind of invisibility, a permanence fueled by assumption and faith.

Institutional art form as it may be, opera, at the moment, appears to be in some serious trouble. Across the performing arts, recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has exacted a brutal toll on organizations that were already struggling to keep doors open.

The first cracks started forming in November 2022 across the pond, when Arts Council England announced cuts that would leave the London-based English National Opera short $14 million from the suspension of an annual grant — a third of the company’s budget — unless the company relocated to Manchester.

January 2023 saw a slight turn of fortunes for ENO, as the council granted the company an extra year in London supported by a little more than $14 million in holdover funding.

“The ENO and our audiences remain in the dark as to why ACE decided to remove our status as a National Portfolio Organisation, despite us meeting or exceeding all the criteria they set,” ENO said last year in a January statement. “One in seven of our audience are under 35, one in five of our principal performers are ethnically diverse and over 50% of our audience are brand new to opera.”

A subsequent subsidy of $30 million and an extension on the relocation timeline to 2029 have allowed the company to limp toward its Mancunian hometown but have thrown its identity into chaos. Proposed cuts of 19 orchestral players and transference of all musicians to part-time contracts enraged members of the opera community and rattled music director Martyn Brabbins into an October resignation, writing, “The proposed changes would drive a coach and horses through the artistic integrity” of the company.

“This is a plan of managed decline,” he said, “rather than an attempt to rebuild the company and maintain the world-class artistic output, for which ENO is rightly famed.”

It all seemed so far away — a tragedy unfolding on a faraway stage. But the first act is always merely a setup.

Rumblings of trouble stateside grew in June, when Tulsa Opera announced the cancellation of two of its forthcoming productions, reporting a 39% drop in revenue in 2022 and projecting a 44% drop in 2023.

Then in July, the renowned Chautauqua Institution and its Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory announced sweeping operational changes to survive its own financial crisis, slating no new productions for its Norton Hall home.

“This is a period of deep reflection about the future of opera in America,” the organization’s statement read.

In August, the head of Opera Philadelphia said he would step down at the end of the 2023-24 season as the company, facing $2 million in budget cuts and a 16% reduction in staff, announced the postponement of Joseph Bologne’s The Anonymous Lover to the 2024-25 season.

August also brought news the Metropolitan Opera Guild would scale back operations and with it the publication of the 87-year-old Opera News.

Met general manager Peter Gelb told The AP the loss was “the result of several years of declining economic fortunes.”

In October, Maryland Lyric Opera called it quits with little explanation in a farewell note posted by founder and artistic director Brad Clark. In November, Syracuse Opera canceled the rest of its season and furloughed its staff of one full-time and four part-time employees.

“While our recent productions have been artistically excellent and impactful, like many opera companies across the country, ticket sales have been considerably lower than projected,” Syracuse Opera board chair Camille Tisdel wrote in a note to members. “Additionally, given the economic climate and uncertainty in our world, grant support, sponsorship and donations are all in jeopardy with no real promise of a return to pre-pandemic giving levels.”