Drastic cuts to programming at the English National Opera threaten its very existence, a group of leading composers and conductors has said.
The composer Sir James MacMillan and American conductor Marin Alsop are among those who have joined a swelling chorus of disapproval over rumoured cuts to programming at the ENO in a letter to the Guardian.
The beleaguered opera house has been facing the prospect of significant cutbacks after it was removed earlier this year from the “national portfolio” of arts organisations given regular government funding, following concerns over its governance and business model.
Arts Council England also put ENO “under special monitoring arrangements” after a series of management crises, sparking similar concerns from the performers’ union Equity.
Now, growing rumours that a new management team plans to cut the number of annual opera productions and reduce the size of the chorus has prompted an outcry from conductors, composers, directors and performers, who warn that to do so would risk destroying the 84-year-old company, one of London’s two opera houses.
In a letter to the Guardian, a group of leading arts figures including MacMillan, Alsop, the conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and mezzo-soprano Dame Felicity Palmer, warn that without “the company of great musicians and singers who are currently giving world-class performances ... there is no English National Opera”.
Rumoured plans to cut the number of full-time singers in the 44-strong chorus and reduce the number of annual opera productions from 11 to eight would “threaten the very existence” of the company, they argue.
The soprano Susan Bullock, a former member of the company, told the Guardian that ENO – which stages all its productions in English – “does something that no other company does”.
“The singers, the orchestra, the people backstage – these are the people at the heart of the company, they create its atmosphere, and that is something that has to be protected at all costs. If it becomes a disparate group of people that come in and out as required, then there is no company. There is no ENO.”
Separately, the performers’ union Equity, which represents every member of the chorus, spoke of its concern at the suggested cuts in headcount or a scaling back of the programme.
The rumours of cuts to productions and staff crown an unhappy year at the opera house, which has seen its entire management team – chairman, executive director and artistic director – resign since January, in circumstances that exposed often toxic disagreements in its leadership team.
A new CEO, former McKinsey management consultant Cressida Pollock, was appointed in March. She is yet to publish her plans to put the opera house, which has battled through a number of financial crises in recent decades, on a more secure financial footing, but the organisation is clear that it may have to make significant changes to its business model if it wants to survive.
A spokesman for ENO said: “Clearly the level of cut we received from Arts Council England means that we have to look at changing the way we work and potentially re-shape our organisation to ensure that we are sustainable.
“We are all committed to ensuring that ENO not only survives but thrives going forward.”
