Support for opera

Approximate read time: 18 minutes

This briefing focuses on support for opera in England. Arts and culture funding is a devolved matter in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, the briefing does touch upon developments involving the Welsh National Opera (WNO) (an opera organisation based in Cardiff) as this receives funding from Arts Council England (ACE) and has also been the subject of recent parliamentary questions.

The briefing has been prepared ahead of the 10 December 2024 question for short debate in the House of Lords:

Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Labour) to ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support opera.

1. How is opera funded in England?

There are a range of opera institutions in England. The five biggest of these, in terms of share of UK performances in recent years, are:^[1]

• Royal Opera House (also home to the Royal Ballet)
• Glyndebourne/Glyndebourne festival
• Opera North
• English National Opera
• English Touring Opera

There are multiple sources of funding for opera institutions. They include:

• Grants: for example, money channelled from ACE, local authorities, or national lottery funds.
• Donation income: this will often come from private donors, corporate sponsors, and charitable foundations.
• Commercial and trading income: this is money gained based on the activities of the organisation. For example, ticket sales, programmes and onsite sales (such as catering and refreshments) and touring income.

The respective reliance on these different funding sources varies across the institutions. For example, analysis commissioned by ACE in March 2024 noted that some institutions, such as the Royal Opera House, received the majority of their funds through commercial and trading income and donations.^[2] However, many others were heavily reliant on grants, particularly outside of London. For example, figures for 2022 indicated that the median proportion of turnover from grants was 68% for organisations outside London and the rest of the South (for London, the figure was 41% and for the rest of the South it was 30%). In addition, six organisations which were regularly funded by ACE received more than half of their income from that regular funding (or in the case of Welsh National Opera, ACE and Arts Council Wales). These included the English National Opera (ENO) and the English Touring Opera. The analysis report emphasised:

These organisations are able to operate due to ACE funding. The presence of large and mid-scale opera and music theatre outside London and the rest of the South is made possible by ACE funding.^[3]

A table detailing regular ACE funding for opera and music theatre organisations since 2015/16 can be seen below.^[4]

Table 1. Arts Council England regular funding to opera and music theatre organisations, 2015/16 to 2023/24

2. What funding issues does English opera face?

Concerns have been raised about many aspects of opera funding and its sustainability over recent years.

One of the most prominent issues raised related to ACE’s funding announcements, made in November 2022, for its 2023–26 investment programme.^[5] This set out the regular funding to be channelled to national portfolio organisations (organisations that receive regular funding and support from ACE). These announcements were also made in the context of instructions from the government for ACE to redistribute some of its funding from London to other parts of the country and ACE’s 2020 ‘Let’s create’ strategy focused on broadening access to cultural opportunities.^[6]

The November 2022 announcement included significant cuts to the funding of a number of opera institutions, including Glyndebourne and the WNO, and smaller funding increases (in monetary terms) for others, such as the Birmingham Opera Company and English Touring Opera. It also featured the removal of the ENO from the investment programme entirely. Instead, ACE said it was offering the ENO £17mn over three years to relocate out of London (ENO was previously receiving around £12.6mn a year as a national portfolio organisation).^[7] The ENO’s then chief executive officer, Stuart Murphy criticised the plan and argued that it should be reversed. In addition, the Stage magazine declared the opera sector “the biggest loser” in ACE’s funding decisions.^[8]

Changes have been agreed to ENO’s funding settlement since then. In July 2023, a joint statement by ACE and ENO confirmed that the organisation would instead receive a significantly larger sum of £35.46mn between 2023–26 and would be given longer (until March 2029) to establish a base outside of London. The statement said that “the shared ambition is for the ENO to be in a strong position to apply to the Arts Council’s National Portfolio of funded organisations from 2026”.^[9] In December 2023, ENO announced this new base would be Manchester, but that it would still also run performances from the London Coliseum:

Following a transition to this new business model over the next two years, ENO will be firmly established within Greater Manchester by 2029, delivering performances, wellbeing and learning activity with multiple partners and venues across the city-region, whilst continuing its substantial opera season every year at its London home, the London Coliseum.^[10]

The March 2024 analysis report commissioned for ACE highlighted real terms decreases in ACE funding for most opera institutions.^[11] It said that even where nominal funding levels hadn’t been reduced, the relatively static nature of the funding over the last few years has led to real terms cuts due to the impact of inflation. The following table shows this for some of the main institutions that received regular funding since 2015/16 including Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House:

Table 2. Change in regular funding from Arts Council England to opera and music theatre organisations, 2015/16 to 2023/24

(Source: Arts Council England, ‘Let’s create: Opera and music theatre analysis’, March 2024, p 48)

In addition, the same report highlighted that many other forms of grants have more or less dried up, including local authority grants and funding previously available from the EU.

The report stated that organisations were trying to cover this grant funding gap through ticket sales, fundraising and theatre tax relief (theatre tax relief allows a deduction in corporation tax payable in specified scenarios).^[12] However, the report noted that income streams from tickets and fundraising were also under stress.

Adding to these financial pressures, the report noted that opera organisations were also facing increasing costs.^[13] This included the costs of making productions (including the costs of raw materials), touring costs (such as fuel, accommodation and venue hire) and the costs of running and maintaining venues and equipment. It also said that real terms wage and fee depression for those working in the sector was “unsustainable in the long term” and “placed a disproportionate burden on individuals, particularly freelance workers”.^[14] Indeed, in January 2024 it was announced that musicians and singers at the ENO would be striking over changes to employment terms.^[15]

As an example of the impact of these financial pressures, in April 2024, the WNO announced it was withdrawing a number of dates from its 2024/25 season due to the financial challenges it was facing. It stated:

The decision has been taken due to the challenging economic times facing all sectors, as well as substantial reductions in WNO’s public funding, which have meant the Company needs to introduce substantial budget efficiencies.^[16]

Similar issues have affected other opera organisations. For example, back in January 2023 Glyndebourne announced cuts to its schedule based on the ACE funding reductions.^[17]

3. What other issues are facing the sector?

The analysis report commissioned by ACE highlighted a number of other issues affecting the sector. This included a lack of diversity among workers and the audience, failure to connect with contemporary society, barriers to producing ‘new work’ and problems with talent development.^[18] It also said the sector was still “heavily geographically skewed towards London and the South East”.^[19] It did note efforts to improve these issues but said that progress had been slow. In addition, the report said that concerns had been raised that music education had been “diminished in state schools” and there were “fewer opportunities to learn Western classical instruments and engage with other activities which might introduce children and young people to opera and music theatre”.^[20]

Summarising ACE’s position on these issues, the analysis report stated:

The Arts Council wants to see a publicly funded opera and music theatre sector in this country that presents high quality innovative productions that engage a wide range of people—both as audiences and performers. Much of the sector presents high quality work but the progress on engaging a wider range of people is more limited. Parts of the opera and music theatre sector address Arts Council’s ambitions very directly because they are audience and community-centred in their approaches, and there is evidence of work taking place in these companies to enable more diverse talent and leadership to come through over time. Parts of the sector which focus on more main-stream presentation of opera and music theatre also recognise these issues, but progress in key areas like a more inclusive and diverse workforce—particularly within leadership and decision-making roles—is slow.

In May 2024, the Stage magazine published comments from opera director Adele Thomas about the importance of dealing with these issues to ensure the future of the sector:

When asked how the sector should respond to this funding crisis, Adele Thomas, a leading opera director who has worked for companies such as the Royal Ballet and Opera and Glyndebourne, told the Stage: “The thing that will kill opera is homogeneity.” She added: “Finding diverse, radical new voices, even at the risk of angering people, is vital to opera’s survival.”

For Thomas and a number of other leading figures in opera and classical music, progress on diversity and inclusion cannot be postponed until the sector weathers its economic challenges, but rather is essential to its continued existence.^[21]

The article also shared comments by a number in the industry raising concerns about what they claimed was ongoing sexual harassment, misogyny and a lack of inclusion in opera. For example, it reported the following comments from the general secretary of the Musician’s Union (MU), Naomi Pohl:

Despite noting more conversations about inclusivity within the sector, Pohl told The Stage that sexual harassment was still a “live issue”, and that she still sees “regular reports” to the MU’s Safe Space service, where musicians can share instances of gender-based discrimination.

Pohl’s comments follow a survey by the MU last month, which revealed that half of women in music have experienced gender-based discrimination, with a third alleging they have been sexually harassed.

Pohl also identified a lack of progress on the inclusion of disabled musicians in orchestras. “It feels depressingly like the sector can only take on trying to improve things for one group of people at a time,” she said. “Inclusion is about equality for everyone.” Pohl added: “The fact is there are people in positions of power who want to protect their positions of power. There is a will to change, but it takes time, and actually sometimes it takes people stepping aside in order for new voices to come through, and [leaders] aren’t very inclined to do that”.

“The orchestral sector and the opera and ballet sectors are facing a funding crisis at the moment, which might mean that the focus is not really on changing the culture but just on survival. But that’s not an excuse. We still need to do this important work”.^[22]

4. What has been said about supporting the sector and its development?

4.1 Government comment and support

In response to a written question in July 2023 about funding reductions for the opera sector, the then parliamentary under secretary of state for arts, heritage and libraries, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, said the then government recognised the importance of people having access to a “diverse range of cultural opportunities”.^[23] He detailed the funding ACE was providing to the sector, including to the WNO, and the support offered by the government’s tax reliefs:

Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through ACE, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and the Arts Council of Wales, which as a Welsh Government sponsored body works within a strategic framework agreed with the Welsh Government.

In addition to the £4.6mn it received from the Arts Council of Wales each year, the WNO will receive £4mn of public funding through ACE’s 2023–26 investment programme, and was also successful in its application to ACE’s ‘Transform Programme’, through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25mn. This means the WNO will receive over £15mn of public funding from ACE between 2023 and 2026.

Cultural organisations across the UK such as the WNO are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the [March 2023] budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will encourage investment in productions across the UK, support cultural organisations to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.^[24]

However, Lord Parkinson also stressed that funding decisions were the responsibility of ACE, due to its status as an arm’s-length body.

The theatre (TTR) and orchestra tax (OTR) reliefs were made ‘permanent’ in March 2024, but with reductions in rates operating from 1 April 2025. Non-touring TTR will reduce from 45% to 40% and OTR and touring TTR will reduce from 50% to 45%. The then government said that making the reliefs permanent was “intended to continue to offset current pressures on these industries and boost investment in our cultural sectors”.^[25]

The Labour government has also indicated its commitment to supporting opera, along with other music, stressing the need to ensure equal access to culture. Addressing support for the industry in a written question in August 2024, the parliamentary under secretary of state at the DCMS, Baroness Twycross, stated:

We are committed to ensuring that creativity and culture can be enjoyed by everyone, not just by the privileged few. This applies equally to classical music and opera as it does to any other musical genre.

In addition to their earned income and philanthropic support, the ENO and WNO are funded by arms’ lengths bodies including Arts Council England and the Welsh Arts Council, whose decisions are made independently of government. The government is aware of the significant financial challenges facing many arts organisations and the new secretary of state for culture will be working closely with the cultural sector at large to support them to thrive.

The creating growth plan for the creative industries which was published in March^[26] sets out a number of early priorities for the new government in relation to the arts and culture—and includes commitments to review Arts Council England, attract more funding from different sources for arts organisations, and ensure every child gets a good creative education.^[27]

4.2 Arts Council England comments

In March 2024 ACE published a statement outlining its funding objectives for the opera sector for the next few years, alongside the publication of the analysis report it had commissioned:

Between 2023 and 2026 we will invest £130mn in regular funding for 14 opera companies, in addition to many awards to smaller organisations and individuals who work in the sector through our national lottery project grants and ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ programmes. As England’s development agency for culture and creativity, we want to ensure we invest our resources in ways that meet the long-term interests of both the public and the opera and music theatre sector in this country.^[28]

The analysis report included suggestions for opera institutions to explore alternative business models. It also suggested those institutions seek to improve collaboration and collective working to deal with issues facing the sector, such as funding, talent development, equality and inclusion, and audience engagement.^[29]

ACE said that it would be having discussions with the sector to reflect on the content and ideas raised in the analysis report. It said these discussions would contribute to plans for the future of the sector, including a formal ACE report responding to the analysis, and would inform future funding plans. However, ACE also stressed that the discussions would need to acknowledge three key themes:

• Publicly funded opera and music theatre—in common with other parts of the publicly funded cultural sector—have seen significant real-term reductions in national and local funding over the last decade. While this has been offset for some organisations by welcome tax credits, recent rises in the cost of living mean that financial pressures on the sector are currently very significant. This necessarily limits their ability to invest in innovation and risk-taking.
• Current demands on Arts Council budgets are high, and we expended all our unallocated reserves to support the cultural sector during the pandemic. This means that any changes that we—Arts Council or the sector—wish to implement as a result of these discussions will almost certainly need to involve a repurposing of existing funding, rather than allocating significant additional resources.
• The Arts Council’s current strategy, Let’s Create, will run until 2030. This strategy shapes the way we work and invest across all the areas of creativity and culture for which we have responsibility. It recognises that audiences are generally not loyal to a single art form and encourages us to think about the way that different artforms and disciplines can and do interconnect. We also believe a single cross-cutting strategy helps identify how practice in one art form or geographic area can influence that in another. We will not therefore produce separate artform (or genre) strategies to supplement Let’s Create.^[30]

ACE published its response to the analysis report in October 2024. It said discussions had been “thoughtful, frank, and often passionate”, but it was positive about the outcomes. In particular, it said:

Crucially […] we heard clear support for the four areas of focus for future work, which gave us confidence that we can continue to partner with the sector to progress them. Those areas are: sector organisation and communication, talent development, innovation and new work, touring and audience development.^[31]

It then discussed developments in these focus areas in section three of the report. For example, regarding sector organisation, it welcomed efforts by a number of opera organisations to come together on a regular basis to discuss shared interests. ACE said it was supporting these efforts. Regarding the promotion of new or innovative works, ACE highlighted how this could also benefit the goals of audience expansion and talent development.^[32]

In addition, the paper set out further details on how its funding supports the sector and linked music or theatre organisations. ACE set this out as follows:

Our 2023–2026 national portfolio investment in music is heavily focused on larger organisations within classical music and opera. With our investment in opera through the Royal Ballet and Opera also included, our regular commitments include 13 opera and music theatre focused organisations, 23 orchestras, and a further 19 other classical and/or opera-focused organisations, including venues and some national youth music organisations, which together represent investment of £59.2mn pa. This represents 78% (£76.3mn) of all music-specific investment within the current national portfolio.

When investment in English National Opera (ENO) is also taken into account […] over the 2023-2026 period, opera and music theatre focused organisations receive 47.8% (£42.1mn per annum) of our total regular music investment (£88mn). Our annual investment in these 14 regularly funded opera and music theatre focused organisations alone (ie all opera national portfolio organisations and ENO) equates to around 9% of the total spend on the 2023+ National Portfolio (985 organisations receiving £458.5mn per annum).^[33]

It also highlighted other ways it supported the opera sector; for example, through more general arts and culture grants and its funding for orchestras (many of whom work with the sector). In addition, it noted the continuing importance of tax reliefs.

However, ACE said it did appreciate the funding pressures the sector was facing and the “anger” caused by funding changes to organisations such as the ENO and WNO. It said it would work with the sector and individual organisations on these challenges. However, it again stressed that the ACE budget was under intense pressure and it did not anticipate increased resources in the coming years. But it noted (and welcomed) an attitude for change in the opera sector, particularly a “recognition that the difficulties of the current operating environment make it essential to find new ways of producing and presenting opera”.^[34]

In its conclusion, ACE said that it intended to open up discussions to even more groups and organisations across the sector. It also said it was now focused on working with organisations on a range of actions, which it hoped would inform future funding programmes. It concluded:

We want to make sure that we invest our resources in ways that meet the long-term interests of both the public and the opera sector in this country. We are committed to working together with colleagues in the sector to ensure the continued quality, vibrancy and sustainability of England’s opera and music theatre offer to the public for many years to come.^[35]

5. Read more

• House of Lords Library, ‘Contribution of the arts to society and the economy’, 26 January 2024
• House of Commons Library, ‘The funding decisions of Arts Council England’, 17 January 2023
• Cherwell, ‘Opera funding cuts: What is the future of the art form?’, 25 February 2023
• Georgia Volioti, ‘Does UK opera have a future to sing about?’, The Conversation, 10 July 2024

---

Cover image by  Gabriel Varaljay on Unsplash