No opera company can run on adrenaline and goodwill, but Northern Ireland Opera is making a herculean attempt. While others have suffered losses to orchestras and choruses, this tiny organisation – four full-time staff – has staged an ambitious new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, with its own 44-strong orchestra in the pit for the first time. (The Ulster Orchestra was hired in the past.) The musicians are “from across the island of Ireland”. Four Northern Irish singers took the lead female roles, an achievement of nurturing and casting. Local singers, trained throughout the year, singing in Russian and learning to dance a creditable mazurka and polka, provided a lively chorus. The company has just been nominated in the International Opera awards 2024 for its outstanding outreach work.
All this is not because plucky NI Opera has been favoured with an Arts Council windfall. On the contrary. The financial situation is dire, the figures stark. Government funding in NI arts has fallen from £14.1m in 2011/12 to £9.7m in 2023/24, with inflation a reduction of around 40%. (Current funding equates to £5.07 per capita, compared with £9.45 in Wales and £21.68 in the Republic of Ireland.) The company can afford to stage only one main work a year. Under the energetic artistic direction of Cameron Menzies, an exuberant Australian who arrived in 2020 and says yes to the impossible, the organisation has become a positive force in the community. Menzies, speaking before the performance, said he would have considered 60% ticket sales to be a success. For many who know it, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece based on Pushkin is the perfect opera. Far more have never heard of it. This past week’s four performances of Onegin, conducted by Dominic Limburg making his debut in the work, sold more than 90% of seats, many of the audience first-timers.
