Drama continues over the fate of Opera Ireland

ART SCENE / DEIRDRE FALVEY: Rumour-mongers have been working overtime recently, spreading varied versions of the fate of opera…

ART SCENE / DEIRDRE FALVEY: Rumour-mongers have been working overtime recently, spreading varied versions of the fate of opera in Ireland in the context of the Government's 8 per cent cutback in Arts Council funding, writes Michael Dervan.

The waves of speculation about the future of Opera Ireland won't be stilled for a while yet. On Thursday, the company was informed by the Arts Council that details of the grant decision won't be forthcoming until January 21st. However, the context of that decision has at last been made clear, by the publication on the Arts Council's website (www.artscouncil.ie) of the report the council commissioned from Pamela Smith.

The bottom line of the new 34,000-word report, Towards a Policy and Action Plan for Opera, is anything but clear, and intentionally so.

Smith describes and assesses the work of the major Arts Council-funded companies, as well as the Anna Livia International Opera Festival (which has lost its Department of Education funding since the report was completed last May). She identifies the major issues as access, orchestral and choral provision, new work, training, and public funding. But she has opted not to issue a straightforward list of recommendations on the basis of her research. Instead, she outlines a range of "strategic options and scenarios".

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Her scenarios include, at one extreme, the provision of an extra season of mainscale opera in Dublin, and, at the other, the creation of a centre of excellence around the building development plans for the Wexford Festival's Theatre Royal. This latter scenario would involve a redistribution of resources, so that "Opera Ireland in particular might cease to exist as a result". In other words, Smith has put everything on the table for the council to choose from. The pity of it is that the report has surfaced at a time when the Arts Council is severely strapped for cash. In that context it shouldn't come as a surprise that Smith has chosen to highlight a stated RTÉ wish to operate "in concert with the Council and its own opera partners in mapping a shared way forward for orchestral provision for Irish Opera".

Hold on, there! What's an orchestra from Belarus doing at the Wexford Festival, then? It's been in part the council's decades-long dependence on RTÉ that has got the resourcing of opera and music in Ireland into the parlous state it's in today. While RTÉ spent, the Arts Council saved. The nearest comparable organisations, the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, spend between 13 and 18 per cent of their budgets on opera. In Ireland, the percentage is barely a third of that. If this country were to reach the British average, the opera spend from the cutback 2003 budget would be a cool €7.19 million - last year's outturn was under €2.5 million. These, needless to say, are not statistics to be found in Smith's fascinating, well thought out, and clearly argued report.

Uneven cutbacks in funding

It's the nightmare before Christmas for some, while others will sleep easily. The Budget cut of €4 million - and remember it's only €4 million out of €48 million - gave the Arts Council the opportunity to clear out the attic, so to speak. (See also Home News in the main paper).

Naturally, those losing out are either devastated or enraged. And not everyone will agree with the AC stance in cutting funds to those who don't conform to the Arts Plan priorities. Maintaining funding for what they consider to be excellent resource organisations who are making an impact, while cutting production companies' funding, is a tricky one. Perhaps those backup bodies will be more important than ever when companies are coping with both AC cuts and a declining economy, as the AC reasons, but do we really need more funding for arts administration and less for art creation? Tough love or tough luck?

DIFF locks in Abbey man

Rory Concannon, marketing director at the Abbey, is to leave the National Theatre to join the newly established Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) as managing director. His experience before joining the Abbey in February of this year was heavily film-oriented - he was appointed general manager of the Cork Film Festival in 1999, and was executive director on the board of the European Co-Ordination of Film Festivals for a year during 2000-2001. DIFF has been gradually building its team for its inaugural festival (March 6th-13th next year), and Rory Concannon is all fired up at the prospect. "It was an opportunity I couldn't turn down - to be involved in building up something that has the potential to be one of Europe's premier festivals. I was so impressed with the strong working board, who have the motivation to make the festival work. To get in at the ground level is the most exciting thing possible for me."

It was a difficult decision to leave the Abbey. "I had a fantastic time there," he said. "Brian Jackson is inspirational, and working with Jocelyn Clarke has been great. And I've made some great friends there. I had to think long and hard, but I found the project irresistible."

O'Hare auction

Eighty Irish and international artists have donated works to be sold at a charity auction on January 17th to commemorate the life and work of Belfast-born gallery director, curator and arts officer Noreen O'Hare, who died of cancer in January this year, at the age of 44. Artists who have donated works include Micky Donnelly (Noreen's husband from Laois), Ida Applebroog (New York), Richard Gorman (Rome), Bernadette Madden (Dublin), Mark Orange (New York), Colin McGookin (Belfast), and Brian Maguire (Dublin). Following the auction, all of the donated works will be shown at St James's Hospital, Dublin, Belfast, Portlaoise and Tullamore. All proceeds raised from the auction will go to the St James's Hospital Foundation to support cancer research. Tickets (€35) for the auction from the Dunamaise Theatre, Portlaoise (box office tel: 0502-63355).

Trinity honours Stuart

Sculptor Imogen Stuart has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Trinity College Dublin. A daughter of the German writer and art critic, Bruno E. Werner, she was born in Berlin in 1927 and studied with the expressionist sculptor, Otto Hitzberger. She first visited Ireland in 1949, and settled here when she married Ian Stuart in 1951. She quickly established herself on the Irish art scene and remains best known for her many religious and public commissions, including her Stations of the Cross at Ballintubber Abbey in Co Mayo and her Fiddler of Dooney at Stillorgan Shopping Centre, Dublin. In March this year, the RHA mounted a substantial retrospective of her work, and she was the subject of a book, Imogen Stuart, Sculptor, published by Four Courts Press.