The sun shone brightly over the downs of East Sussex on a summer afternoon while people trickled onto the grounds of Glyndebourne to hear an opera by Handel. Most of the men wore black tie, and many women were in floral gowns, as they picnicked among gardens and sculptures, and under the shadow of the property’s grand, Jacobethan manor house.
As they made their way into Glyndebourne’s opera house, old Oxbridge friends recognized one another and swapped life updates; introductions were made, photos were taken, and, when the time came for the show to start, the party was put on a respectful pause for the opening act of “Giulio Cesare.”
It all had the appearance of opera in paradise, which isn’t so much of an exaggeration. Glyndebourne, a country house festival that over 90 years has grown into an enormous, year-round operation, has a reputation for elitism in its unofficial dress code and high prices. But there is also elitism, the good kind, in its level of music making.
Over a brief visit in August, I saw some of the summer’s finest opera: excellently sung, played and staged revivals of “Cesare” and Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” (Had I stayed an extra night, I would have heard Aigul Akhmetshina, the Carmen of the moment, in a new production of that opera.) The house was full, and the ovations were enthusiastic.
If only the same could be said for all opera in Britain.
Glyndebourne, a privately funded festival that receives little state support, has been mostly immune from the convulsions of the opera industry in Britain. In recent years, companies that rely on government help have faced dramatic cuts from Arts Council England, and have been subject to directives that many in the field have found insulting, if not ignorant.
English National Opera, or E.N.O., the second house in London after the Royal Ballet and Opera, lost all its usual Arts Council support in 2022; instead, it received money to relocate to a city outside London, like Manchester. That was postponed and the company’s funding temporarily restored, but in the meantime its offerings have shrunk to the point that Glyndebourne is considered the second-largest house in England, in terms of number of performances.
“The U.K. has always been this sort of halfway house,” said Richard Morrison, a critic for The Times of London, referring to its mix of government and private financing. “It’s not the American system, and it’s not like Germany, which is so heavily funded by the state. But the balance has swung so far, it’s like you’re telling opera companies that you’ve got to be America now, but without the tax breaks or the tradition of philanthropy.”
British opera companies have been through a period of precarity under the last Conservative government, with about a dozen leaders in as many years at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport while the party was in office. With the Labour Party coming to power this summer, arts administrators are more hopeful; Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, plays flute and has been vocal about his love for music.
Money, though, remains tight, and nothing is certain about the future of opera. Gus Christie, the grandson of Glyndebourne’s founders and the festival’s executive chairman since 2000, said that watching Conservative leaders talk about the arts, “I’ve been ashamed of our politicians.”
He wondered whether the opera sector could do more to change the perception of the art form. Glyndebourne may help perpetuate clichés of glamour in grand opera, but he thinks the focus should be more on the working-class, backstage realities of the field. “There’s a lot of very normal people who are working here,” Christie said. “They’re just like plumbers or doctors. And because there are a lot of people involved in the whole process, you have to charge a lot for a ticket. But it’s a lot cheaper than a pop concert.”
Opera seems to be viewed with skepticism by the Arts Council, which for the past several years has been working on Let’s Create, a long-term strategy to reform culture in England by 2030. The council outsourced research on opera, and this year released a report with sweeping recommendations for change. Among the study’s conclusions were an understandable indictment of homogenous arts administrations, but also of the standard repertoire, which the report said doesn’t “reflect contemporary society.”
That the authors of the study don’t see contemporary resonance in the 20 operas it lists as overrepresented, like “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Macbeth,” seems a failure of interpretation. Their idea of modern topics and relevance is more literal-minded; one example to emulate, they suggest, is Mason Bates’s widely panned 2017 opera “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.”
The study also calls for spreading opera companies more evenly throughout England, hence the directive for the E.N.O. to leave London. While it’s admirable to want this art form to be available in smaller cities, can the solution be as simple as a transplant? The study doesn’t include any rigorous research into whether there is audience demand or willing sponsorship for the E.N.O. somewhere like Manchester.
In a statement, the Arts Council said, “Our outstanding orchestras and ensembles — and the thousands of professionals who bring this music to life — are a vital part of the creative sector of this country,” and added, “In an environment where difficult funding decisions have had to be made, our commitment to opera and classical music is unwavering.”
But to many observers, like Morrison, the Arts Council’s decisions haven’t been sufficiently considered. “There’s certainly a misunderstanding,” he said. “Whether it’s willful or just a misunderstanding is questionable.”
Among the Arts Council’s beliefs that Morrison finds bizarre is that opera, even at its highest level, can be done inexpensively. There are many small companies that present works in parking lots and pubs, but that model cannot be scaled to the level of the Royal Ballet and Opera. “People want excellence,” he said, “and the British profession should strive for excellence. The notion that you can do that on the real cheap is a bit mad.”
The E.N.O., which named a new chief executive, Jenny Mollica, earlier this year and is expecting to announce a road map for its future in November, said in a statement that the Arts Council’s 2022 funding announcement “created a period of significant turbulence for the company.” It was far from alone in the fallout. Welsh National Opera was forced to cut back on the number of its performances. Glyndebourne lost half of its state funding, a subsidy that supported touring and education rather than the main slate of the summer festival.
“When we got the cut, the only solution was to cancel the tour,” Christie said. “They killed it, and it was a great shame.” In place of the annual tour, a tradition since Christie’s father ran the festival in the 1960s, Glyndebourne is focusing on a more robust fall season at home. So much for the Arts Council spreading opera throughout England.
“It’s very much the country’s loss,” Christie said of the cuts. Morrison was no more optimistic, saying, “to be honest, I can’t see a way through it.”
There are some glimmers of hope, however. Last year, the Arts Council gave the E.N.O. a reprieve, with a grant of £24 million (about $32.2 million) until 2026, and a longer timeline for its move north. (Originally it was to be done by 2026; now the E.N.O. has until 2029, which it said in a statement will “allow for consultation with staff, more work in London and more time for the E.N.O. to develop partnerships in the new city and to establish a program there.”)
The Department for Culture, Media & Sport, under new, Labour Party leadership, said in a statement that “opera is an important part of our nation’s rich cultural fabric, and this government is committed to supporting wider participation and growth in our music and performance sectors.” A review of the Arts Council, and a change of leadership there, could follow.
“I’m not totally pessimistic,” Morrison said. “We’ve been through crises before. It’s almost a definition of the arts scene that there’s always some crisis looming. And I do think there are enough people in the U.K. who care about opera that it won’t die out.”
Glyndebourne, reliant above all on philanthropy, seems mostly protected from the uncertainty of opera in Britain. If there are signs of strain at the E.N.O.’s Coliseum in London, with fewer performances and creaky revivals that rarely feel like the best versions of themselves, there is an atmosphere of comfort farther south. Champagne flows, the gardens are well watered, and there are no noticeable concessions of quality onstage.
But the painful decision to cut touring is a reminder that Glyndebourne is part of England’s performing arts ecosystem. “We are the opera sector,” Christie said. “Together, I hope we can engage the new government, get a wider range of society to come through the doors somehow and reach that real potential to flourish much more than we currently do.”
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