February 19, 2016 – 8:45 AM
Darren Henley’s article in the Guardian on the 17th February, “The ENO must evolve for its own sake”, is disingenuous and highlights the problem with the Arts Council and arts funding; a lack of an art form policy that holds the organisation to account for its funding decisions. Before the last funding round in 2015 […]
February 10, 2015 – 5:11 PM
Charlotte Higgins in her article “Opera’s malaise does not stop at the Coliseum” (2.2.2014) fails to get to grips with the problem of opera “reinventing itself as a crucial part of our national cultural fabric”. The problem is there is no policy for the arts in England. Arts funding is now run like a fifth rate hedge fund that […]
There was an article in the Observer on the 15th June 2014 by Vanessa Thorpe “Arts in crisis – blame lies with council cuts”. For the chairman of the Arts Council to pin the blame on local authorities budgets is disingenuous at best. Finding a scapegoat reminds me of the the young aristocrat expaining to […]
January 25, 2013 – 7:40 PM
The Guardian reported on the 17th January 2013 that English National Opera had made a loss of £2.2 million for the financial year 2011/2012. Opera is an expensive form of music to put on and it would be easy to snipe away about under represented musics at the expense of opera. How ever there are musicians livelihoods at stake and the financial loss […]
December 16, 2012 – 5:51 PM
Any one witnessing the recruitment of the Director General at the BBC would have thought the pantomime season had started earlier than usual. When George Entwistle was appointed at a annual salary of £450,000, Lord Patten said “George is a creative leader for a creative organisation”. Alas events the grave and the past were his undoing , that, […]