What’s wrong with state-subsidised opera

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/feb/03/whats-wrong-with-subsidised-opera

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In light of Charlotte Higgins’ argument (Opera’s malaise doesn’t stop at the Coliseum, 2 February) that English National Opera would be better off in an auditorium with half the capacity of the 2,300-seat Coliseum, it’s worth recalling that in November 1963 Denys Lasdun was hired to design for Sadler’s Wells Opera (the forerunner of ENO) a theatre with 1,600 seats, only 50 more than at the company’s then base, Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Islington. This new opera house was to rise on the South Bank, alongside a twin-auditorium National Theatre. But in February 1966, with the cost of this publicly funded project soaring far above original estimates, the Labour government and Labour-controlled GLC shelved the opera component, forcing Lasdun back to his drawing board and Sadler’s Wells into seeking an existing, rather than purpose-built, venue in central London. In 1968, it chose the Coliseum.Daniel RosenthalAuthor, The National Theatre Story

• Charlotte Higgins fails to get to grips with the problem of opera “reinventing itself as a crucial part of our national cultural fabric”. The problem is there is no policy for the arts in England. Arts funding is now run like a fifth-rate hedge fund that every three years selects a national portfolio of arts organisations and then three years later unbundles them. In an age of austerity, the Royal Opera House and ENO exist cheek by jowl and in 2015 will receive public funding of circa £37m. If two A&E units existed side by side, one would be closed or relocated immediately. A national policy for the arts would ensure equitable distribution of funding across art forms and regions.Chris HodgkinsLondon

• The implications of Charlotte Higgins’s analysis stretch to a much wider tranche of the contemporary arts, in a society faced with growing social inequalities, climate change and general malaise. The “stronger sense of mission” Higgins advocates for ENO is no less a need across most of our arts communities. Arts Social Action can confirm her conclusion that it is contemporary theatre which points the way. David Hare’s 2009 The Power of Yes at the National Theatre turned the 2008 financial meltdown into a synthesis of gripping drama and public revelation. More recently the Royal Court’s 2071 collaboration between stage director Katie Mitchell and climate-science professor Chris Rapley brought a riveting cocktail of drama and climate change. Higgins’ nostalgia for when “ENO stood for something exciting, radical, modern … in the days when it was cheap, it was young, it was classless…” should reverberate across the wider arts scene. The world moves; so must we.Ralph WindleArts Social Action