Opera January-December 1969 I-II. [antikvár]

In the NewsArts Council: 'We are not a luxury'. The annual report of the Arts Council of Great Britain, entitled 'Changes and Moves' (5s.) includes an introduction by the Chairman, Lord Goodman, which declares:We are not a luxury; wc do not cater for a small élite out of the pockets of a protesting multitude; we supply a commodity which a great many people require and which can make a better life for a great many more once their interest and appetite have been awakened. All this can only be stated in slogan form in this note, but it does need to be stated, and I make no apology for monotonous repetition on a theme so crucial to the Council and its work.Grants and guarantees to music in England totalled L3,212,886. Of this, L2,344,520 went to opera and ballet, including L1,280,(XK) to Covent Garden and L757,500 to Sadler's Wells. Some other disbursements were:LEnglish Opera Group38,000Glyndebourne Touring Opera29,000Phoenix Opera8,468Yorkshire Opera2,200Chelsea Opera Group425Handel Opera Society185Friends of Covent Garden100Unicorn Theatre Club (Abingdon)100Bristol Opera Company25'Opera for All', not included with the above, incurred a gross expenditure of L44,461 and took L15,546 as revenue, leaving a net expenditure of L28,915. Festivals are also accounted for separately: the Bath Festival received L5,500.The Scottish Arts Council had a general expenditure on the arts of L647,227, including L50,450 to the Edinburgh Festival, L2,100 to 'Ledlanet Nights', and L5,380 as net expenditure on 'Opera for All'. The Welsh Arts Council spent L156,500 (out of a total of L180,683) on the Welsh National Opera.It should be noted that some of the amounts quoted represent maximum guarantees not all of which may have been paid in full.In the Observer of December 1, Kenneth Tynanwho refers to a higher total figure, which incorporates expenditure on the other arts as wellwrote of the 'crazy imbalance' in the Arts Council's subsidies:Out of L5,750,000 distributed among all the arts in England, more than L2 millionwell over a thirdwent to Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells. The work of these two organizations, which confine themselves mainly to orchestrally backed singing and dancing as practised in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is thus assumed to outweigh in value the whole of the English theatre, since the money expended on 70 theatre companies was only L1,700,000.Vienna. Joseph Wechsberg writes: The state opera celebrates its centenary by performing only two, possibly three, new works. Instead of artistic sensation, budgetary economy has become the keynote of the jubilee. The centenary performances will begin on May 2, and should reach a climax with just one performance of Beethoven's Minsa Solemnls, not exactly a major operatic work, under Leonard Bernstein. (The great advantage is that it needs no sets.) There will be a Mozart cycle, a Wagner