Save Our Opera Company

OPERA COMPANY PREPARES TO “DO OR DIE”

14-01-2008

Birmingham Opera Company is putting the final touches to its “do or die” submission to the Arts Council before tomorrow’s deadline.  This is their first and last appeal against the axing of their £324,000 Arts Council grant.

Without the cash, the Company is almost certain to die, although Birmingham Council’s chief executive Stephen Hughes has made representations on their behalf.

General manager Jean Nicholson made a whistle-stop visit to Venice last week to meet with artistic director Graham Vick, and said, “we’re doing our best to address the concerns the Arts Council had, but it’s not easy.

“We were criticised on the grounds of our risky artistic agenda and an unstable financial model, but that’s not an accurate assessment of who we are what we do” she said.

Ironically, in the last week, the McMaster Report into arts funding has praised risk-taking and innovation in the publicly-funded sector, a view endorsed in recent interviews by Culture Secretary James Purnell. 

On that basis, Birmingham Opera Company should be quids in, but instead they are anxiously awaiting their fate which will be revealed on January 23. 

Nicholson revealed that she is meeting with the City Council this afternoon, but knows that as they already provide £193,000 each year, they can’t make up the deficit.

“They have been very supportive.  The city is as surprised as we are," she said.

"I understand that the Chief Executive has spoken to the Arts Council, and we’ve been grateful for the support we’ve had from The Stirrer website and in the Mail, and from the Birmingham Post.

“Now we’ll just have to wait and see.”

See also ("Birmingham Opera Company 'Coolest In The World" see link here)