Opera braces itself as questions remain over single company plan

The Arts Council’s daring idea of seeding a national opera company in a major recession could be an idealistic dream – or it could be everyone’s worst nightmare

IS IT AN Irish solution to an Irish problem, or just an Arts Council solution to an Arts Council problem? On the face of it, the Arts Council’s decision to cease funding Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company (OTC) and Wexford Festival Opera, and instead fund a single, totally new company from 2011 doesn’t seem like a solution to any known opera problem. There won’t be more opera as a result, and the artistic range of what’s being proposed will not only be more limited but blur existing boundaries.

The first question, of course, has to be: is it all about money? And the official answer is yes and no. It’s no accident that the council is proposing such a radical move at a time when its own funding situation is as parlous as it’s ever been. The Arts Council has never shown serious intent to fund opera to European norms. Report has followed report, and promise has followed promise. But the council’s last durable innovation in the sector – the funding of OTC – took place as far back as 1986. The Irish state is culpable, too. We have a state-supported National Theatre, a National Gallery, a National Museum, even a National Concert Hall. But there’s never been the political will for a state-supported national opera company.

At first sight, the nucleus of a national opera company is just what the Arts Council’s new move might seem to provide. The functions of the three existing companies are all to be subsumed into the new company, whose name “must reflect its all-Ireland role and remit”.

There will still be a festival in Wexford. There will still be tours of small-scale productions around the country. And there will still be opera at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, or perhaps at the Daniel Libeskind-designed Grand Canal Theatre due to open next year.

This is all as it should be. The functions of the three companies are essential to opera in Ireland, even if the supply is meagre by any reasonable international comparison. And it’s obvious that three companies, none of which produces opera on a year-round basis, could effectively share resources in administration and management.

But the Arts Council’s thinking goes far beyond that. The council envisions that in 2010 the existing companies will all get reduced grants, and wind down their activities. In 2011 a new company will open for business and provide opera seasons in Dublin, prepare productions for touring, and run the Wexford Festival.

The Arts Council's documentation on the operatic shake-up, which The Irish Timeshas seen, proposes tours in February, June-August and November-December. There would be full-scale productions opening in Wexford and touring to Dublin in March, May and November, when one of the Wexford Festival's main shows would be taken to Dublin for four performances. The Wexford Festival would feature its traditional three full-scale productions and three small-scale ShortWorks productions, one of which would provide the November tour.

Wexford might look like the real winner here. But would it turn out that way? Local pride might swell at the idea of a national company based in the south-east. But local input at board level would be reduced. Control of the festival would be vested in a national rather than a local body. The new company’s proposed relationship with Wexford Opera House – which is a separate entity from the actual festival – is not at all clear. And one of the possibilities outlined would see the main stage of the opera house being unavailable for outside hire for up to 36 weeks in a year.

The Wexford Opera Festival brand and experience could be diluted through regular annual access to one of its productions in Dublin. And in Dublin that experience could itself be effectively polluted. The Gaiety Theatre has neither the acoustic nor visual qualities of the Wexford Opera House, nor its creature comforts. Its smaller stage would require sets to be cut down. And the stage at the 2,000-seat Grand Canal Theatre could make Wexford productions seem Lilliputian.

And, anyway, would the rarities the festival specialises in be an appropriate replacement for the more mainstream works that Opera Ireland has traditionally favoured? Or would Wexford be expected to compromise its unique programming style to find a repertoire that would sell to a wider Dublin audience?

There are other limitations for Dublin. Provision in the capital would drop from its long-established level of four annual full-scale productions to three. And on the touring front, the ShortWorks productions from Wexford, which have been traditionally accompanied by a solo piano rather than an instrumental ensemble à la OTC, would be a retrograde step.

But the path leading to this retrogressive model is littered with dangerous hurdles. The set-up and wind-up costs do not appear to have been fully taken into account in the Arts Council evaluations. The winding up of three long-standing companies won’t be cheap. There will be contracts to be bought out, redundancies to be paid for. There will be deficits – somewhere in the region of €1 million to €1.5 million – to be taken care of. And there are already howls of protest, too. Key individuals in the three companies do not seem entirely convinced by the detail of the scenarios the Arts Council has provided to date.

Why not base the new company in Dublin, for instance? It’s where the necessary musicians and choral singers have to be based to make a living. “While in theory this new entity could be based in Dublin,” says the Arts Council document, “arguments for locating it in Wexford Opera House appear to be more compelling. For the purposes of this exercise, it is assumed that the new entity is based in Wexford Opera House.” QED. End of story. And the key selling point of “scaleablity” (meaning adaptability to changing circumstances) is asserted for the new company, but nowhere demonstrated or quantified.

Amazingly, I could get no figure for the likely savings. The Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism would probably have to cough up the substantial transitional costs. The uncertainties are many. The risks are huge – just think of hanging on to existing sponsor relationships.

The council’s daring idea of seeding a national opera company in a major recession could be an idealistic dream – or it could be everyone’s worst nightmare. And it could be a portent of what’s to come in other art forms as the Arts Council struggles with its post-McCarthy funding.