The chancellor had other things on her mind this past week, but she cannot fail to have heard the rallying cry – barely heeded in the budget – of her one-time colleague Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, now chief executive of the Royal Society for the Arts. He called for bold investment in the arts, and celebrated the benefit to social communities, and the “sense of joy and a sense of pride, a sense of belonging” that can result. Among others – in Glasgow, Hull, Salford – he cited Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, home to Welsh National Opera since the venue opened in 2004. WNO’s record of achievement in those two decades has been exceptional, from internationally important productions of Janáček, Britten, Richard Strauss and others, to community projects and an award-winning youth opera company.
Last week, members of WNO Chorus were out in the rain, outside New Theatre, Oxford, distributing “Save the WNO” leaflets. After a 35% funding cut from Arts Council England and an 11.8% reduction from Arts Council Wales, chorus, orchestra and others face heavy cuts to jobs and pay, and a threat of compulsory redundancies. In the crumbling ruins of the UK’s once sturdy, publicly funded operatic edifice – ENO, maimed and instructed by Arts Council England to move out of London; Opera North ominously announcing an “organisational review” to create a “leaner, more agile structure” – the dismembering of WNO is particularly inexplicable. It is central to Welsh culture, founded by local miners and others, building on their homeland’s reputation as the land of song.
