Your editorial (Thwarted in its mission to bring music to the people, 10 November) misses a vital point. The trouble with opera is that it is obsessed with a small canon almost exclusively from the 18th and 19th centuries. Exceptions are few and far between, while contemporary works are as rare as hen’s teeth. And so opera isn’t just perceived (mistakenly) as elitist and expensive but also as uncool and irrelevant, especially by the young.
Scaled-down versions of classic favourites don’t come anywhere near an authentic experience, and touring them has limited effectiveness in growing audiences. Those of us further down the ladder, attempting to mount new opera on a very small scale, face a huge battle with conservative audiences, limited funding (no encouragement from the Arts Council there) and apathy from colleagues and influencers in the industry. All seem to be stuck in the operatic past.
Without a sustained and sustainable renewal of the genre, however, the myth of opera’s obsolescence will become a reality. We need more lithe and nimble regional touring companies that can afford to mount new operas and thereby enhance cultural life more widely, in more senses than one. It’s perhaps the Royal Opera’s Linbury theatre, with its varied offerings of opera and dance, new and old, which could and should plant regional offshoots. The mammoth ENO should stay put.
Edward Lambert
London
• I very much agree with your editorial. Here in Ludlow, on the Welsh border, more than 250 people packed our local arts centre recently to be thrilled by Beatrice and Benedict, performed by the professional and wonderful Mid Wales Opera. We were told – and shocked – that the Arts Council of Wales has cut funding to this innovative company to nil.
MWO ensures that nobody in Wales and the Marches is more than 30 miles from professional opera through its touring programme, together with the outstanding work it undertakes in schools, providing an education programme that gives so much to young people. I hope that the Arts Council of Wales will reconsider this draconian and senseless cut.
Helen Rooker
Ludlow, Shropshire
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