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The Matter of Scottish OperaDateline: 13th June, 2004In Richard III Queen Margaret has a most telling exit line: "These English woes will make me smile in France." English readers should not be tempted to swap "Scottish" for "English" and "England" for "France" at last week's news about the parlous state of Scottish Opera, even though there is much rivalry between the various parts of the United Kingdom. Scottish Opera is in the state it is for two reasons. First, as a report published a couple of years ago made crystal clear, it was been chronically underfunded for years and the Scottish Executive has made no attempt to address that underfunding - the occasional injection of extra cash to meet debts is no way to tackle the basic problem - and it is quite clear that the management has not cut its coat according to its cloth but rather (to extend the metaphor in rather a silly manner!) has been decking itself out in the Hans Christian Andersen king's new clothes. The result of the whole débacle is that 88 people are to lose their jobs, the company is to go dark for months and, as former culture minister Sam Galbraith says, Scotland now has to settle for second best. I cannot see how the company's board can continue: for years they have winked at massive overspending and now have taken the decision to deprive over eighty people of their livelihoods - including the entire chorus of thirty-odd people - many of whom, if they are lucky, will get jobs south of the border and so Scotland will be doubly deprived. But they are not the only guilty party. The Scottish Executive, while paying lip-service to the need for a world-class opera company in Scotland, has consistently expected to get it on the cheap. Opera is expensive: it requires an orchestra and a chorus, as well as principal singers, creatives and techincal crew. If the Executive has failed to recognise this, then that is the fault of successive culture ministers (including Sam Galbraith) for not fighting the company's corner. In fact, flagship companies, whether national opera, ballet or theatre, require a higher level of funding than other companies as they have to attract - and keep - the best. It would be preferable, if there is not the will to provide the necssary funding, for there to be no national company at all. Scottish Opera has to exist alongside and be compared to English National Opera and Welsh National Opera. If the Scottish Executive is not willing to fund SO at the necessary level, then it should say so and close the company. That, of course, is the most unlikely scenario, for it would be a massive blow to national pride, so now the Executive is attempting another way of getting the kudos of a national company on the cheap. It is no more likely to succeed than the previous attempt and in a few years we will hear laments that the new Scottish Opera is just not good enough. If Scotland wants a national opera company, it has to be prepared to pay for it: it's as simple as that. But there is one major caveat: the money has to be extra cash. Under no circumstances should the Executive decide to rob Peter to pay Paul, taking money away from other areas of the arts. They have shown real vision in the new concept of the National Theatre of Scotland - a non-building-based, commissioning body - but that won't work with opera. We can hope to see, with the NToS, new Scottish writing of a high level on show all over Scotland, but opera works on a pretty fixed repertoire: to forsake Mozart, Verdi et al in favour of purely new work would alienate the vast majority of opera fans and make opera even more exclusive and élitist than it is now. SO has to compete with and, in a sense, mirror ENO and WNO, so the Executive has to find the extra cash or forget the whole idea. Not only is it time for a major debate in the Scottish Parliament but also for the Executive to start talking to Westminster. If devolution is to be anything more than a catchphrase, it has to be properly funded, and that means funding for the arts as well as for all the other areas under the control of the Executive. Articles Indices:
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