Curious Case of the Minister and the ENO

Benjamin Paul Griffiths as Tadzio, Death in Venice c Neil Libbert *

The new culture minister James Purnell is set to make arts cuts to swell the Olympic coffers. It spells real problems for the arts world from slicing funding for youth programmes to potentially selling off national institutions such as the ENO. But what does it mean exactly, and why should we care? Ben Dowell explains.

So what are we to make of James Purnell, our new culture secretary? Well, beyond the soundbites of his first speech (to cultural leaders at the National Portrait Gallery) his insistence that the government’s purse strings will not be loosened  is something that affects us all.

First the spin: He lists his most recent cultural forays as Death in Venice at English National Opera, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's 21st birthday celebrations at the South Bank on Saturday, Kneehigh's Caucasian Chalk Circle at the National Theatre, and Requiem for a Dream on DVD.

And then the promises: A freedom from the “tyranny of targets”, that excellence is to become the top priority for the arts and that there should be a deeper understanding of what "access", a contentious buzzword for the past decade, can really mean.

Access does not mean dumbing down, our new Culture Secretary says, citing, as an example, the way Punchdrunk's production of Faust, staged earlier this year by the National Theatre in an east London warehouse, took a classic and managed to attract an audience of every single age and background.

It all sounds good.

 And there has been some action  – Purnell has appointed Sir Brian McMaster,  one of the most serious members of the British arts luminaries and, until last year, director of the Edinburgh International Festival - as an adviser working with the DCMS and Arts Council.

So what are we to make of the early signs?

Well, is “Yeah, yeah” not sufficiently adult? It’s certainly how I feel.
Because the key thing for arts in the UK has and always will be money.
And he aint promising any.

In fact whatever Purnell says he cannot allay the deep and widespread fear in the arts community that cutbacks loom in the government’s next spending round in November:  an earmarked 2.7 % grant increase which will see the recipients formulating swingeing cuts into their business plans by next April.

And the one word arts managers in line for sharp cuts don’t want to hear is “Olympics”.
For it is the 2012 Games that are : “spoiling our cultural ship for 17 days' worth of sport” as one arts luminary put it to me the other day.

Here are the figures:
Arts Council England will have £112.5m sliced from its budget to help foot the  £9.3bn Olympics construction budget.
The Heritage Lottery Fund will lose £161.2m and Sport England faces a £99.9m cut.
In addition, the government plans to divert an additional £675m from the National Lottery to fund the event, which is probably the biggest swathe of all and something which prompted the likes of National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner, Arts Council chief executive Peter Hewitt and South Bank Artistic Director Jude Kelly to publicly slam the plans.

But should we care if a few operas get binned and galleries close in favour of regeneration of the East End and the kudos of holding the Olympics in London?

The answer is a resounding ‘yes.’

Because what it’s very easy to forget is that it’s not just seemingly remote ‘arty farty’ projects that will suffer.

For example, architects were up in arms after the Arts Council withdrew its £250,000 annual funding for Architecture Week, the industry's leading festival. Millenium Dome designer Lord Foster of Thames Bank denounced the move as "totally ridiculous" .

And then there was the anger (don’t laugh) of the Elgar Society after the Arts Council turned down an application for £174,000 towards a series of youth concerts to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

The arts in this country make us part of who we are and are integral to our surroundings.
They reflect our national character in all it’s many facets and give us quality of life not only by entertaining and beautifying but also by making us question, observe, laugh and think.
The arts are, it could be argued, what make us civilised.

And if that’s too airy fairy, the bottom line is that they consistently attract millions of visitors and perform a massive role in rehabilitation, education and therapy.

Even Purnell himself says:
 “The only magic that is there is the magic of the sectors themselves…This is a government about aspiration and about championing Britishness, and the arts are part of what makes Britain what it is. If you asked anyone around the world to name things about Britain it would be: in Germany, Simon Rattle; in Thailand, Man United; in America Harry Potter."

But, still , he’s seemingly not prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
And the irony is that, for all his declarations that the arts are about great Britishness, he’s about to put a fantastic national institution, the English National Opera at risk.

I can tell you that there is real worry among past and present ENO bosses that a recent small-scale ENO show at the Young Vic could be the thin end of the wedge. And  there’s fear that the government is sizing up a sale of its prestige premises - at the Coliseum near Trafalgar Square -  before turning the great company into a slimline touring rep outfit.

The company's supporters tell me that they really fear a sale of the “Colly” to swell Olympic coffers – but that this would net barely £100m over five years.
And there’s also the fact that, in spite of a catalogue of financial problems, the ENO has done so much.
 It has been scaling down ever since the 1995 Stevenson report told it is must, though with the help of two Arts Council bailouts.

It now does 12 shows a year, rather than 20 since 1995 and staff numbers are below 450 from 1995’s figure of more than 600 (following further cuts of 10% of the workforce in February this year). ENO also only does one “biggie” production every three years or so…..

Sooooo. Could the Arts Council justify a cut now it has been such a diligently biddable little opera company? Or has the ENO’s diminished stature made it more vulnerable?

I’m inclined to go for the latter. It has shrunk while swallowing its extra funding.
And at the same time ticket prices are coming quickly up to Covent Garden levels (top seats now cost £83 and I hear the board has apparently been lobbying for an increase to cover debts).

The point is: even if the ENO needs more money and is expensive, why sell off a brilliant company and premises  for the money to be swallowed into a seemingly bottomless Olympian pit?

Especially as the arts world anyway needs to step up to the plate with the Olympics  – if the Government is serious about plans to hold  a Cultural Olympiad, a programme of arts events, to accompany the 2012 Games.

But there has been no budget allocated to this programme so far and without money that is meaningless  or as Hytner put it: "There's no money, and there's no plan”.

The decision is now with Gordon Brown who could veto any potential sell off of the Colly. But as Chancellor, it was his department which set in place the lower than expected Arts Council funding model for next year so why would he change tack now? He’ll probably not lose many votes by it.

Or does Purnell have the stomach to fight for the Colly if it really is in danger?

However much Purnell liked the ENO’s Death in Venice, the signs aren’t good, especially if his words "I don't have a magic wand,” which he told the Guardian recently are anything to go by.

But if people like Lord Foster, Hytner, Jude Kelly and co are getting antsy; organisations like the ENO lose prestigious homes and arts funding are cut for an Olympics nobody really wants, these words, like much of what he has said in his first few days in charge, are sure going to sound pretty hollow indeed.

*and English National Opera

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