Madam, – Eileen Battersby does a great service in writing so passionately about Opera Theatre Company (OTC) and its impending demise under the current plans of the Arts Council (An Irishwoman’s Diary, September 20th). I had the honour of chairing the board of OTC over 20 years ago. Then, as now, I was astounded by the response of audiences all over Ireland to serious opera, done to the highest standard, on a small scale, sung in English. Everywhere it was lapped up, with full houses in community halls and parish centres. Operas like Janacek’s Jenufa – six voices and a piano – grabbed and held the rapt audience from one end of the country to another. Young Irish singers and musicians brought beautiful productions of Handel, for example, to people who had been starved of live opera in small towns – even off-shore islands.
Opera, a brilliant art form, is often derided as “elitist”. There was, and is, nothing elitist about the work of OTC – on the contrary it showed us all that high standards of production matched to beautiful music appeals to everyone, and enriches our lives.
The country has been plunged into a fire-storm of cuts. Can the Arts Council and Minister for Culture, Mary Hanafin not re-jig their budget to rescue something wonderful which may never be resurrected if it is allowed to sink now? – Yours, etc,