The BBC are off to Salford

[Alain Maréchal]

"Alain, what exactly do you mean by 'provincial'?"

I think there's a quite simple test. Take a random date in the season - lets say the second Thursday in November, and check what's on. A city without the widest (note 'the widest' not 'wide') selection of journals, magazines, television chains, concerts, recitals, films, musicals, plays, sports meetings or events at whatever level of culture is provincial.

[teamsaint]

the best sport in england is up north.... and I say this as a life long Southampton supporter(and season ticket holder).

Go to Leeds or Manchester stations on a Saturday morning, and within an hours train ride there are so many fixtures going on in at least 3 major professional sports(including The very best quality) that you would be hard pushed to know which one to go to.

London (and the south) is dreadful in comparison.

No doubt the same can be said for other areas of life.

This country needs to grow up, wake up, and remember that the vast majority of us live a long way from the smoke.

[Ventilhorn]

Yes, it was a wind-up; to wind up the sadly declining number of message board contributions and provoke a lively discussion; but I did include an important message, which was intended to "put the wind up" those who are complacent enough to think that there will still be 5 (6 if you include the part-funded Ulster) BBC orchestras in 3 or 4 years' time.

All music lovers must make their feelings quite clear on this possibility now and not wait until it is a 'fait accompli'.

Supporters of the locally sponsored "provincial" symphony orchestras and opera companies should also be aware that they are going to have a fight on their hands to keep that which they value

Anna,
The quote from my message #82 above seems to have been misinterpreted. If you read it again you will see that it refers to the possible loss of at least one BBC orchestra over the next 3 or 4 years but I also added the warning that other regional orchestras (let's drop the word "provincial", since it seems to cause indignation among some people) could also find themselves squeezed for cash; both from their local authorities and, indeed, from the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Hence your post which I quote from below.

I really don't understand that point. Why should the BBC moving to Salford have that effect? Why should the Welsh National Orchestra and WN Opera be under threat for example?

Unfortunately, other contributors seem to have fixed on arguing whether we are a country or a state, which is quite irrelevent in regard to the subject of this thread.
Except that we should all recognise that this country is "in a state" and we should fight to preserve the culture that we hold dear.

VH

[vinteuil]

the best sport in england is up north...
.

.

ah, yet another reason I'm so happy in London...

[Ariosto]

the best sport in england is up north.... and I say this as a life long Southampton supporter(and season ticket holder).

Go to Leeds or Manchester stations on a Saturday morning, and within an hours train ride there are so many fixtures going on in at least 3 major professional sports(including The very best quality) that you would be hard pushed to know which one to go to.

London (and the south) is dreadful in comparison.

No doubt the same can be said for other areas of life.

This country needs to grow up, wake up, and remember that the vast majority of us live a long way from the smoke.

I have to say that such reasons would be reason enough for me to want to be in the South. And we get warmer and often better weather.

I have lived in Brum, Glasgow, and Cardiff, so I know there are some advantages. By far the best for me was Cardiff. I lived 5 miles outside and only a mile from the sea and lovely countryside.

The downside in London is the overcrowding and noise, but we have geat concerts and theatre and opera and ballet and, well you name it.

[Anna]

"Alain, what exactly do you mean by 'provincial'?"

I think there's a quite simple test. Take a random date in the season - lets say the second Thursday in November, and check what's on. A city without the widest (note 'the widest' not 'wide') selection of journals, magazines, television chains, concerts, recitals, films, musicals, plays, sports meetings or events at whatever level of culture is provincial.

That's a pretty ridiculous litmus-test. We all have access to the same journals, magazines, what on earth are television chains - we all get satellite don't we? London will obviously have the most venues because it has 16 times the population of Edinburgh and 20 times that of Cardiff, doesn't mean either City is in any way inferior or can be classed as 'provincial' in the way it appears you are using the word (which seems to have come straight out of a 19th century novel), i.e., a person lacking the sophistications of city life; a rustic or narrow-minded individual

[Chris Newman]

If people think that "I'm all right, Jack" applies to British arts and think we can afford to lose a few orchestras and opera companies they should begin to think again and start fighting (like the Dutch). We have 6 opera houses with companies attached to them (if you include the precarious Scottish Opera. I am not including part-time ventures like Garsington).

Royal Opera Covent Garden/ ROH
English National Opera/Coliseum
Welsh National Opera/Millenium Centre
Scottish Opera/Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Opera North/Grand Theatre Leeds
Glyndebourne

A simple comparison is Germany's population (82,000,000) which is about 25% marginally bigger than ours (62,000,000). However, the following is a list of German Opera Houses with companies attached.

Alte Oper (former opera house), Frankfurt
Anhaltisches Theater (in German), Dessau
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe
Bayreuth Festspielhaus (Bayreuth Festival Theatre), Bayreuth
Chemnitz Opera, Chemnitz
Cologne Opera, Cologne
Cuvilliés Theatre, Munich
Deutsche Oper am Rhein (German Opera of the Rhine), Düsseldorf
Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Weimar
Dortmund Opera, Dortmund
Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin German Opera), Berlin
The Dresden Semperoper
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden (Baden-Baden Festival Theatre), Baden-Baden
Halle Opera House, Halle
Hamburgische Staatsoper (Hamburg State Opera), Hamburg
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden
Kiel Opera House, Kiel
Komische Oper Berlin, Berlin
Landestheater Altenburg (in German), Altenburg
Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth
Meininger Theater (in German), Meiningen
Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen
Nationaltheater Mannheim, Mannheim
National Theatre Munich (Bavarian State Opera), Munich
Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, Oldenburg
Oper Frankfurt (Frankfurt Opera), Frankfurt
Oper Leipzig (Leipzig Opera), Leipzig
Opernhaus Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf
Opernhaus Wuppertal (in German), Wuppertal
Prinzregententheater, Munich
Saarländisches Staatstheater (in German), Saarbrücken
Semperoper (Saxon State Opera), Dresden
Staatsoper Hannover, Hannover
Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera), Berlin
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich
Staatstheater Braunschweig, Braunschweig
Staatstheater Darmstadt (in German), Darmstadt
Staatstheater Kassel, Kassel
Staatstheater Mainz (in German), Mainz
Staatstheater Nürnberg, Nuremberg
Staatstheater Stuttgart, Stuttgart
Theater Bonn, Bonn
Theater Bremen, Bremen
Theater Dortmund, Dortmund
Theater Duisburg, Duisburg
Theater Erfurt (in German), Erfurt
Theater Lübeck, Lübeck
Theater Ulm (in German), Ulm

They have 800% more opera houses than we do. Granted, a handful share companies but think how many more orchestras are employed in Germany, not to mention singers.

Finland has roughly five and a half million people. It also has 12 professional symphony orchestras. One orchestra per 500,000 people
Britain has 62 million people. It has eighteen professional symphony orchestras. I have included Radio and Opera House bands. One orchestra per 1,500,000 people.

If Britain loses any professional artistic ensemble the effects will be devastating.

In these figures I have not included the admirable chamber orchestras and "occasional" freelance ensembles.

[Al R Gando]

but we have geat concerts and theatre and opera and ballet .

Geats (Wikipedia)


Geat Concerts (live at Royal Adalbart's Hall)

[Al R Gando]

If people think that "I'm all right, Jack" applies to British arts and think we can afford to lose a few orchestras and opera companies they should begin to think again and start fighting (like the Dutch). We have 6 opera houses with companies attached to them (if you include the precarious Scottish Opera. I am not including part-time ventures like Garsington). .

Exactamundo. The level of current provision in the live arts in Britain is already beyond shoddy for a so-called "developed" country. I have friends living in the north of England, who can get to live opera in Leeds... provided they skive off work early, make a nightmare 2.5-hour drive in the fast lane, make a handbreak turn into the arm-and-a-leg-per-hour multistorey, and collapse into their seats 45 seconds before the curtain rises. But this is not what is conventionally called "provision".

[aeolium]

Chris msg 97

I think that your example of Germany is misleading. AFAIK they have far more opera houses than any other country, let alone Britain. This is as much to do with the politics and history of Germany as anything - it is a federal structure which was originally divided into many different principalities, small states and city-states, each of which had court or state orchestras. Britain is far more centralised, both politically and geographically, with relatively few large cities. It has nothing like the musical tradition of Germany, with very few symphony orchestras prior to the C20 - the tradition was more in choral societies. That plethora of opera companies in Germany is already causing strains for city and state finances, a situation alluded to in this article.

In your comparison btw you omitted to mention Birmingham Opera Company and English Touring Opera among smaller opera companies - both of these have done very good work on relatively small budgets compared to the big companies. You also omit to mention the large number of chamber groups (many of them excellent), instrumentalists and singers who give concerts all over Britain, especially during the summer festival season. The picture you paint is of a "Land (fast) ohne Musik" - I don't think so.

We can never rival Germany in musical provision - it is much richer, it spends half of GDP per head on defence what Britain does (more's the pity), and it has a much older musical tradition. I agree that we should strive to preserve at least what we have, but I would not personally be in favour of any more spending on opera companies, or any new companies. It is a very expensive form of cultural provision compared with others - £78 million of Lottery funding was spent on refurbishing the ROH while many regional arts companies are struggling to survive on (or have gone under for want of) £100K or so. The repertoire is not large, so that the same operas get performed again and again - often in outlandish productions to keep staleness at bay. I would much rather have funds spent on smaller-scale musical and other artistic providers, with more money spent in the regions and more touring (including for the opera companies - Glyndebourne and WNO have done good work).

[Chris Newman]

My examples of Germany and Finland were not misleading, aeolium. Of course, we could never expect to have a fraction of the musical and artistic facilities of these countries. What I am trying to point out is that one opera company or one orchestra thrown to wolves in Britain will be of enormous artistic and cultural negative consequence compared with these countries whose history has allowed them to be better off than us. I deliberately did not include BirminghamOC and ETO as they are forced to make up for about 25 missing "permanent" places on my cultural map.

I agree that the existing opera companies should be encouraged to increase their repertoire and create budget productions. If I see another "empty stage" production that has been specially built for the Alden brothers I shall scream; the set for one could well do for three others. As much as I love the Mozart Da Ponte operas, La Traviata and La Boheme I wish the companies would have the nerve to tour Berg, Janacek and Tippett.

What I am arguing is that if that drippy cultural secretary tries to do what nearly happened in the Nederlands, and he will (why are Arts Ministers always chosen from the Philistine element in Governments?) I believe we should all be marching on Whitehall. Britain's small art resources are in grave danger. If we care we must fight. Our fight and that of the rest of the world helped the Dutch. Our previous Tory MP was a singer and cared. I am having a hard time with the new guy.

[Flosshilde]

"Alain, what exactly do you mean by 'provincial'?"

I think there's a quite simple test. Take a random date in the season - lets say the second Thursday in November, and check what's on. A city without the widest (note 'the widest' not 'wide') selection of journals, magazines, television chains, concerts, recitals, films, musicals, plays, sports meetings or events at whatever level of culture is provincial.

Really Alain, that's pure mince, as we say up here. I think under that definition Paris would be described as 'provincial' - certainly as far as the visual arts are concerned, as I doubt that it would have as much contemporary art on show as Glasgow does, for example.

How long did you spend in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Manchester that enabled you to decide that they are 'provincial'? A week? A day? A couple of hours?

[MrGongGong]

Surely it should be

The BBC IS off to Salford ?????


(Knot that my grammer is ayne goowd)

[Al R Gando]

If I see another "empty stage" production that has been specially built for the Alden brothers I shall scream; the set for one could well do for three others. .

Errr, and David Alden agrees with you. The attentive will have noticed that his ENO production of Lucia Di Lammermoor was given in repainted sets reused from his own production of Ariodante.

I don't think much to Christopher Alden.

[Lateralthinking1]

It is when the BBC is on to Salford that the locals have to worry. No more street corner shenanigans. Know what I mean. Alastair Cook loved the place so much he spent the rest of his life in America. Still, all will be forgiven if they give that dull building a metaphorical coat of red paint by naming it "Ewan MacColl House". He, at least, knew that romance is wherever you care to see it:

I met my love by the gas works wall Dreamed a dream by the old canal I Kissed my girl by the factory wall Dirty old town Dirty old town
Clouds are drifting across the moon Cats are prowling on their beat Spring's a girl from the streets at night Dirty old town Dirty old town
I Heard a siren from the docks Saw a train set the night on fire I Smelled the spring on the smoky wind Dirty old town Dirty old town
I'm gonna make me a big sharp axe Shining steel tempered in the fire I'll chop you down like an old dead tree Dirty old town Dirty old town

Come to think of it, don't like the sound of that axe. Too close to home on every wavelength.