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Dateline:
16th June, 2004
Scottish Opera Row Rolls On and On
The fall-out over the plans to make 88 members of Scottish Opera's
staff redundant and virtually close down the company for nine months
continues to have repercussions:
- Composer Craig Armstrong, who won a Golden Globe for the soundtrack
to the film Moulin Rouge, has resigned from the culture commission
set up by the Executive to review arts policy and funding. He cited
the Scottish Opera affair as being his main motivation, although he
added that the lack of practising artists on the commission undermines
the commission's legitimacy.
- According to a document obtained by The Scotsman, as early as last
summer the Scottish Arts Council had told the Executive that there
were only two possble ways forward for SO: either it should be funded
at the extent of £10m per annum or it should be closed
down and replaced by a new company called Opera for Scotland, with
a £2m budget. This would be an umbrella organisation which would
commission other British and foreign companies to provide "opera
for Scotland". The cost of winding up the company would have
been £10m. A compromise (of the sort which has been imposed
by the Executive) is not, the document says, an acceptable way forward.
- It has emerged that, late last summer, culture minister Frank McAveety
wrote to SO telling them that the Executive was not prepared to allow
their funding to go beyond £7.5m a year, in spite of the fact
that Sir Peter Jonas of ENO said that SO could not funstion on less
than £10m a year.
- John Stalker, general manager of Edinburgh's Festival Theatre, is
thought to be already planning to replce SO's season at the theatre
with companies from Eastern Europe.
>> Chorus
told, it's official
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