ENO’s The Handmaid’s Tale 2024 © Zoe Martin
7 Deaths of Maria Callas – 3 November 2023
The Handmaid’s Tale – 1 February 2024
The Barber of Seville – 12 February 2024
Jenůfa – 13 March 2024
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle – 21 March 2024
The Magic Flute – 28 March 2024
It was Emma Loffhagen, a feature writer for the London Evening Standard newspaper, who wrote in February about the Arts Council’s outpouring in its professional magazine. The article gave a largely unnoticed update to the Arts Council’s Relationship Policy, warning that “political statements made by individuals or companies associated with the Arts Council as a client – even if comment is in a personal capacity – could cause reputational risk and in turn affect funding”.
This Sword of Damocles statement – undoubtedly a PR disaster for the Arts Council – is deeply concerning as the effect would be that the Arts Council could censor and silence the work of artists and art companies, and associated people in their personal lives. It is proof on its own of the deadly political nature of the Arts Council and its cohorts.
I have written before about the terrible nature of this organisation which has more than £750 million under its control. I have specifically referred to the devastating effect that its decisions have had on various opera companies over the last year or so, as the Arts Council tries to demonise the opera genre. It has demonstrated a total lack of understanding of this art form. It implies that all opera is old and that even Verdi’s Aida should be performed in a garage, totally misunderstanding the concept of “Grand Opera”. I am not sure that the elephants would appreciate performing in a garage – too stuffy and smelly!
It is perhaps this lack of understanding that is forcing the Welsh National Opera to restrict its output as well as Opera North and companies in Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are organisations that for decades have provided great public service to local communities all over the UK.
In London, the English National Opera has been under a terrible attack to close its doors at The Coliseum and move North. Luckily for the English National Opera the current executives, Chairman Harry Brunjes, Chief Executive Jenny Mollica and Artistic Director Annilese Miskimmon are all made of sterner, and more knowledgeable stuff, and whilst Manchester will reap some glorious reward, ENO will stay in London at The Coliseum for more years to come. And indeed, deservedly so.
John Allison the editor of Opera magazine quite rightly wrote in the May edition about ACE’s (Arts Council England) report published in March this year “Let’s create opera and music theatre” analysis. He described it as 113 pages of rubbish about how much of the repertoire was written long before the 20th century and reiterates ACE’s problem with the popular staples of the opera repertoire. Apparently, we should only accept new work and the old works should be discarded. So perhaps, they should suggest that Shakespeare and the Old Masters at the National Gallery should also be discarded!! Of course, this is nonsense. It will be interesting to learn who is leading the attack on opera in the Arts Council and whether this is an Arts Council or government led issue. So far as the government is concerned, its cultural ambitions are close to zero and hopefully will disappear or change after the election.
The ENO 2023/24 season was quite extraordinary despite ACE’s attack on its very existence. A season with over 60% newcomers to opera, with approximately 50% being under the age of 30. That is not only a great tribute to the work put in by the executives and all those associated with ENO, but also the extraordinary programme put together in a very short space of time by the Artistic Director and her team.
There were some wonderful traditional operas as well as modern pieces. Rossini’s The Barber of Seville was an outstanding start to the ENO season with a thrilling Figaro sung by Charles Rice, a Count Almaviva sung by the South African tenor Innocent Masuku and even the return of Lesley Garrett as the housekeeper. It was a revival of one of Jonathan Miller’s iconic productions.
Mozart’s The Magic Flute followed, with an award-winning production by Simon McBurney supported by the energetic and precise German conductor, Erina Yashima.
The Director David Alden returned with his production of Janáček’s Jenůfa in a hugely powerful work conducted by the American Keri-Lynn Wilson. The cast – all heavy on emotion – was led by Jennifer Davis with Susan Bullock, John Findon, Julieth Lozano Rolong and Freddie Tong supporting.
Bartók’s short opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, first staged in Budapest in 1918, was remarkable. The semi-staged performance directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins was thrilling – and not just for fashioning the doors without doors for the seven different scenes. On the opening night, the scheduled soprano Allison Cook became indisposed, and Jennifer Johnson stepped in with two hours notice to sing at the side of the stage, while the staff director Crispin Lord acted this female role brilliantly. It was an extraordinary tour de force that saved the show and the performance.
Perhaps the two other sold-out shows which had an extraordinary effect on The Coliseum audiences, were Ruders The Handmaid’s Tale directed by Annilese Miskimmon and the 7 Deaths of Maria Callas which was an opera project by Marina Abramović. These two performances were highlights of a great season with Abramović acting as director, set designer, scenographer, librettist, and actor in a huge performance where she was on stage for nearly all of the one hour thirty minutes of this remarkable performance.
The director Annilese Miskimmon did not quite manage this with her Gilead power in The Handmaid’s Tale, but this performance never fell short of making the audience despair of the seven commandments of Gilead being:
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not commit divorce.
Thou shalt not commit abortion.
Thou shalt not commit gender treachery.
Thou shalt not read or write.
Thou shalt not commit any manner of treason against the Republic of Gilead.
Which, of course, brings us back to the Arts Council!! Perhaps not seven commandments, but the Gilead under Nicholas Serota’s command, is a terrible parody of what used to be a reliable and transformational organisation. Its new “Relationship Warnings” cannot be more Gilead-like and as in the opera, you come away screaming “shame on you” constantly.
My heart goes out to all the companies selected for review by the Arts Council. I hope that the election will mean ultimately a change in the self-centred leadership of Nicholas Serota and his merry Gilead gang as well.
David Buchler
