Opera

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, on obtaining this debate at a suitably operatic time of the evening, and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, in the debate.

For those of us who know and love it, opera is the most enthralling, inspiring and uplifting art form of all. Unfortunately, as we have heard, it is also one of the most expensive. You really cannot do it full justice without an orchestra, talented actor-singers and designers, sets and costumes, large theatres, dramatic lighting and more. There are not enough people who know and love opera to protect it from accusations of elitism—unlike popular music or football, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, pointed out.

So it is hardly surprising that there are challenges facing the state funding of opera, which takes up such a large proportion of total arts funding. I was at an opera APPG event last week where a music professor, who had formerly worked for the Arts Council, suggested that, to preserve opera in the long term, opera lovers themselves might need to pay a greater share of the costs and rely less on the Government. But I wonder, picking up from something that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, whether the Government could not do more to promote greater private support. Perhaps when they want to reduce public funding for opera, they could think about tax or other incentives—even public recognition through honours—to encourage private donors to replace some of the funds lost. Other countries do it: why can’t we?

Another challenge is to increase the audience for opera, to which the answer has to be education. I will illustrate this with two stories. Some of your Lordships may remember Frank Johnson, erstwhile editor of the Spectator. Frank came from a poor home in the East End and went to a sink school in Shoreditch, having managed to fail the 11-plus. The school provided children to appear in operas at Covent Garden. Frank discovered that he could get out of some of the maths lessons, which he hated, by volunteering for this.

He appeared as an urchin in a succession of great operas, culminating as one of Medea’s children, whom she was about to murder, in Bellini’s “Norma”. Having spent an entire act clutched rather painfully to the bosom of Maria Callas, he became a passionate and deeply knowledgeable opera lover for the rest of his life. It is possibly not a route for everyone, but it does show the value of gaining early experience of opera.

My second example comes from another opera APPG event last Tuesday in the Jubilee Room. This featured 20 children from St Joseph’s Catholic primary school in Chelsea, who provided the children’s chorus for ENO’s recent performances of “La Bohème”—which also featured my godson as Marcello. The school offers a highly impressive music curriculum, involving all its students from all backgrounds. I suspect that many of the children who sang the Act 2 chorus of street children with such thrilling confidence and enjoyment at the APPG event will retain a fondness for opera throughout their lives.

That shows the power of opera to engage children, and it certainly calls for a proper level of government investment in large-scale main-stage opera across the UK so that companies such as English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and the Royal Opera can continue their brilliant work with young people and enable many more of them to experience opera, to fall in love with opera and, in due course, to demand that their Government keep opera alive.

I end with two questions for the Minister. What are the Government doing to boost private investment in opera? How will they ensure that the vital outreach and education work of the major companies can continue and expand to ensure that all young people are able to experience, enjoy and value the unique rewards of opera?