The end of ENO?

[oddoneout]

Only a few days separate these two quotes.

I couldn’t be prouder of our submission to the Arts Council for our next period of NPO investment, and look forward to discussions with them on what the ENO can deliver for audiences and stay true to our founding purpose that opera is for everyone.’

https://www.classical-music.uk/news/article/stuart-murphy-to-step-down-as-ceo-of-eno

If we don’t lift and shift the company then, on the budget ACE is suggesting, the only thing we can do is make the orchestra chorus and technical teams redundant.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/15/cuts-to-funding-will-decimate-english-national-opera-this-is-a-howling-mistake

[oddoneout]

Stop apologising, stop trying to sell our music by dumbing it down. Sell opera on the basis that it is like nothing else on the planet, not on the basis that it’s superficially cool and hip – that is so phoney.'
Joyce DiDonato

This touches on an important point in my opinion which is often overlooked. Those who haven't experienced live opera, orchestral playing or ballet will have a different reaction from those who have. The physicality of what's going on is very different from watching on a screen let alone just listening to a recording and can engage attention even if the music or art style is completely outside their reference familiarity. Children watching an orchestra will be intrigued at the different instruments, the way they are played, and the sound they make. Ballet can come as a surprise when you hear the thumping of feet on the stage floor, so at odds with the grace and fluidity of the dancers' movements. The drama of opera can be absorbed from the singer's actions and expression even if the dialogue is unknown.
Those who control, pontificate and meddle, seemingly have no understanding of that;perhaps their own experience is so long ago they have forgotten or perhaps they never had it. The inevitable result is that initiatives, targets etc risk becoming "we know best", patronising, imposed on, affairs, which even if they deliver something of value will always tend to be subject to the feeling that something much better could have been done with the resources. Listening to those who deliver successfully and have much experience of doing so seems to be something that has now been dispensed with - a case of who you know not what you know?
Another side to this is the lift that performers can get from an audiences that haven't had their reactions blunted by familiarity. The RPO has had a longstanding relationship with Lowestoft in Suffolk and one of the reasons the players enjoy their time there is that they are playing to audiences who will often react in a much more direct (honest some would argue) way since for many it will be a new and unusual experience; their responses will be to the music as they hear it rather than through the filters of comparison with other performances, composer's intention etc. Those who are more familiar with concerts appreciate not having to travel to London, and the work with schools and others brings pleasure to both the players and the pupils.
How can this sort of initiative https://www.lowestoftsfc.ac.uk/royal...nic-orchestra/ which is surely part of ensuring the future of both the arts and the people involved in them, happen if the likes of orchestras, opera and ballet companies, are not supported at least to some degree by government, and that support needs consistency and objectivity. ACE seems to have dispensed with both those qualities. There are surely better ways of ensuring that the funding is not taken for granted than having the spectre of being dropped off a cliff hanging over the head.

[Nick Armstrong]

Reminds me of the old saying "You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".

Or Dorothy Parker’s variant involving ‘culture’…

[Dave2002]

Quite so. Something I posted about R3’s output is clearly very relevant here too:

Reminds me of the old saying "You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".

[Nick Armstrong]

One of the oddest things about arts funding in general (whether it's the ENO, the BBC or R3 in particular) is that there is an unquestioned assumption that great efforts should be made to appeal to people who have no interest what they are doing, and never will, no matter how hard they try. So, instead of using the money to be the best at what they do, they get distracted with meaningless and rather patronising access projects that are only there to get a few short-lived headlines. It seems that ENO went through all the hoops in this regard and it still made no difference to the final outcome.

Quite so. Something I posted about R3’s output is clearly very relevant here too:

Good words, which apply across the board and not just to opera it seems to me:

'Stop apologising, stop trying to sell our music by dumbing it down. Sell opera on the basis that it is like nothing else on the planet, not on the basis that it’s superficially cool and hip – that is so phoney.'

Joyce DiDonato

[Dave2002]

I spent a lot of time on this both as a manager/employer and content creator (as we are now so dismally styled ) and came to the conclusion that targets and quotas made a difference - but not much . What really made a difference was addressing social inequalities : housing and health inequalities in particular ; and things that don’t immediately spring to mind like good quality pre school childcare and education. Trying to fix social inequalities at the apex - virtually all of my staff had a post graduate qualification like a PG Dip or MA is next to impossible - you have to look at the root causes. That’s why - in terms of addressing social injustices - cuts to things like Sure Start will have a much bigger impact than either cuts to Arts in this country or doubling the spend on them . What ACE are doing may look laudable in some eyes but it’s completely ineffective. If they really wanted to make a difference they would have more impact volunteering for 8 hours a week as literacy coaches.

An interesting view, and follows on from a conversation at lunch today. Schools in the UK have a wide variety of problems. In some areas the kids are well looked after, and parents are motivated to help, but in others - dare one mention it - probably socially deprived areas - parents and schools may be well matched - both equally useless. This almost becomes self perpetuating. Few teachers would want to go to teach in a sink school - unless they had some sort of social mission. These are the sorts of school where some of the kids come in tired, and hungry, and can't focus. Forget about education - the kids need feeding first.

If I write much more I'll probably be struck down as non PC - but I can say with some certainty that there are schools with problems like this in the part of Scotland where I currently live.

I have also had knowledge of some schools in CA - USA. There there are some very good schools, but there are also schools were the students are deprived. Thus if a teacher says "We won't be here next Monday - it's a holiday" - which in many schools might be met with cheers - many of the kids look unhappy. It's only when the message is spelled out to such a teacher "but don't you realise they won't eat again until Tuesday?" that the problems become clear.

Sometimes there are at least some remediations - such as breakfast clubs.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It's hard to disagree with your expert conclusions, Ein Heldenleben. I'm tempted to add, given the CEO's inanities this morning, that he and his ACE team might be better employed working as car park attendants, bar staff and IT repair people, instead of wasting taxpayers' money pontificating from their increasingly ineffectual quango.

Well I wouldn’t go that far and I wouldn’t say I’m an expert but even indirectly pointing the finger at the hapless Britten Sinfonia for the many injustices in our society seems a bit rich . Particularly as Ben Britten and Pears were so extraordinarily generous in their wills leaving so much to a (well - run ) charitable foundation.

[Master Jacques]

It's hard to disagree with your expert conclusions, Ein Heldenleben. I'm tempted to add, given the CEO's inanities this morning, that he and his ACE team might be better employed working as car park attendants, bar staff and IT repair people, instead of wasting taxpayers' money pontificating from their increasingly ineffectual quango.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I quite agree. The (sometimes overt) acceptance that artistic quality must play second fiddle to condescending, pre-doomed outreach and social change strategies has been eating away at the performing arts for a decade or so now. At least now, all of us can see this corrosive approach for what it is.

I spent a lot of time on this both as a manager/employer and content creator (as we are now so dismally styled ) and came to the conclusion that targets and quotas made a difference - but not much . What really made a difference was addressing social inequalities : housing and health inequalities in particular ; and things that don’t immediately spring to mind like good quality pre school childcare and education. Trying to fix social inequalities at the apex - virtually all of my staff had a post graduate qualification like a PG Dip or MA is next to impossible - you have to look at the root causes. That’s why - in terms of addressing social injustices - cuts to things like Sure Start will have a much bigger impact than either cuts to Arts in this country or doubling the spend on them . What ACE are doing may look laudable in some eyes but it’s completely ineffective. If they really wanted ti make a difference they would have more impact volunteering for 8 hours a week as literacy coaches.

[Master Jacques]

One of the oddest things about arts funding in general (whether it's the ENO, the BBC or R3 in particular) is that there is an unquestioned assumption that great efforts should be made to appeal to people who have no interest what they are doing, and never will, no matter how hard they try. So, instead of using the money to be the best at what they do, they get distracted with meaningless and rather patronising access projects that are only there to get a few short-lived headlines. It seems that ENO went through all the hoops in this regard and it still made no difference to the final outcome.

I quite agree. The (sometimes overt) acceptance that artistic quality must play second fiddle to condescending, pre-doomed outreach and social change strategies has been eating away at the performing arts for a decade or so now. At least now, all of us can see this corrosive approach for what it is.

[Darkbloom]

One of the oddest things about arts funding in general (whether it's the ENO, the BBC or R3 in particular) is that there is an unquestioned assumption that great efforts should be made to appeal to people who have no interest what they are doing, and never will, no matter how hard they try. So, instead of using the money to be the best at what they do, they get distracted with meaningless and rather patronising access projects that are only there to get a few short-lived headlines. It seems that ENO went through all the hoops in this regard and it still made no difference to the final outcome.

[Simon B]

I would question the wisdom of handing £17 million to ENO towards relocation costs and devising a business plan.

ENO has around 300 employees. A half-respectable package of redundancy compensation to them would absorb 50% of £17m on its own. Without this £17m and unless ENO were allowed to sell the Coli and distribute the proceeds to creditors and in redundancy payments (at a guess the legalities will prohibit this), sudden removal of the ACE grant would likely cause it to become bankrupt instead and unable to do even this.

IMO the Manchester thing is a sophistry confected ad-hoc in a cynical attempt to deflect responsibility from ACE for what they are actually doing, which is intentionally closing down ENO. The cavalier sloppiness of it is a dead giveaway. They should at least have the guts to take responsibility for what they are doing rather than airily wrap it up in a conceit and attempt to Teflon away.

...the more I get the impression that music is not generally considered worth supporting...

Exactly this, is the broader context IMO. Opera is the easiest initial high visibility target as it's i) a lot of funding for not that much "product" by its very nature and ii) the biggest "elitist arts subsidy" bogeyman. The likelihood of a broader public outcry against this is negligible - tacit support is more like it. However, as has been noted, look beyond this and it is notable that ACE has also taken a wrecking ball to support for what might be loosely described as "contemporary classical stuff". Taken together this is indicative of the broader direction of travel - having started with the two easiest targets first.

[Master Jacques]

I can only assume that someone at ACE has read Oskar Schmitz's polemic "Das Land Ohne Musik?" and took it as something they should aspire to, rather than a criticism.

In addition to which, the broadening of the word "culture" to include every human activity from strip clubs to street fighting has allowed ACE to fund "cultural activities" which have precisely nothing to do with art.

[LHC]

There is a great deal of sense in your post. ACE has it in for professional music-making of all stripes. For many years now, the organisation has preferred to issue generalised "aspirational" and "celebratory" sound bites, rather than spend time helping formulate logical or practical means to reach their desired goals. I'm told that the defunded Britten Sinfonia made the mistake of putting the maintenance of high quality music-making above box-ticking exercises of diversity, outreach and populism. ACE regards the idea of art as a transcendent, human activity available to all, as hugely suspicious.

I can only assume that someone at ACE has read Oskar Schmitz's polemic "Das Land Ohne Musik?" and took it as something they should aspire to, rather than a criticism.

[LHC]

.... Given the lead time that I assume is involved in coming to its decisions I don't imagine that ACE has factored leccy bills into its bean counting.

As it's now clear that 'Arts' Council England didn't consult with ENO, Opera North, other touring opera companies, theatres in Manchester or Manchester's Mayor before demanding that ENO move to a new theatre in Manchester that is unsuited to opera, and has no intention of becoming ENO's home, I think it's safe to say that their bean counters didn't factor any practical issues into their decision-making processes.