David Sanderson

Paul Mescal was Indhu Rubasingham's guest at opening night of #HereWeAre @NationalTheatre as he got a flavour of the Lyttelton stage ahead of his NT double bill debut. As per usual @CliveDavisUK review https://t.co/ZoA1BZah35 of Sondheim's last work bang on. Absorbing and surreal

#TheGreatestShowman is coming to London. Read @thetimes about how circus is meeting musical theatre. And about the director’s nerves that audience sing-a-long will drown out the circus art. https://t.co/QkxJuxOIZ1

I think Naomi Campbell might just have asked Tristram Hunt ⁦@V_and_A⁩ when the Steve McQueen exhibition is coming. Her one arrives this June. It is going to open her “Pandora’s box” apparently. Full story @thetimes later https://t.co/dIj8OPKJbN

It also reported that many in the sector felt the cuts, which also affected a number of orchestras, showed ACE “no longer has faith in opera [and classical music] … this is seen as a potential disaster for the sector

It does acknowledge however the financial pressures that all of Britain’s performing arts companies are facing and states that the “real value of regular grants” from ACE to opera companies has declined. It said in the last funding round there was an 8% reduction.

It was also critical of “slow … progress in key areas like a more inclusive and diverse workforce” with 10.6% of the workforce being from the Global Majority [Black, Asian, Latin American, Arab, Mixed and other backgrounds] compared with 23.4% of the UK population.

“Many of the contributors we heard from, large and small, more traditional and more radical, feel that not enough new work is being produced … new work has the potential to contribute to both the ambition and quality of the artform, particularly as a living cultural practice.”

According to the report authors, the “perception of contributors” was that other countries such as the United States, New Zealand and Denmark were better at “integrating new works into their company repertoire” with San Francisco Opera’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs one cited.

The most performed out of those written after WWII were Benjamin Britten’s A Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which were 46th and 49th respectively. All the top 40 were composed by white, European men.

A study of the 6,500-plus opera performances across England between 2017 and 2023 found that the 25 most frequently performed were all over 100 years old led by Puccini’s La Boheme which accounted for over one in every 25 shows.

It concluded that productions “needed to be more relevant and appeal to a wider audience”adding that “the absence of diversity in the repertoire and workforce is reflected in the audiences for opera and music theatre.”.

It added however: ‘It is not just that only a minority of people do attend opera: only a minority (albeit a substantially larger one) are interested in doing so.”

The report published on Thursday by ACE found that the proportion of the adult population attending opera had “stayed fairly constant at around 4% over recent years” which compared to 22% for plays, 8% for classical music, 4% for ballet and 5% for jazz.

The funding decisions resulted in Glyndebourne ending its touring programme, Welsh National Opera severely curtailing its tour of English cities, and English National Opera being forced to find a new home outside the capital.

The report was commissioned from DHA and the Audience Agency following the outcry over widespread funding cuts to opera organisations by ACE in 2022. The council said at the time there was “almost no growth” in opera audiences.

It reported that opera “lacks confidence … it is only engaging in a limited way with the stories of the contemporary nation” and would be “failing to keep the artform alive if it only performs old works”.

The report commissioned by the funding body also reported concerns that subsidised opera companies were failing to create any commercial successes akin to those from the theatre world such as Matilda, War Horse and Dear England. mfl