Opera

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for giving us this excellent debate tonight. I thank him again for the wonderful recital that he organised with WNO here in Parliament before the election; I and many from both Houses thoroughly enjoyed that.

As noble Lords have said, opera is a sublime art form, but an expensive one—although, as the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, rightly says, it is a drop in the ocean compared with other things that government spends public money on. The costs have been well rehearsed: the years of training for those musicians and singers; the litany of jobs that the noble Baroness, Lady Harman, reeled off expresses how many people it takes to put an opera on; the seasonality of the work, with so many people forced to juggle other jobs, not just on the way up but when they reach the heights of the art form; the need for rest days—you cannot do a matinee and an evening performance like you can six days a week in other theatre; and, of course, the international travel, as our Question this afternoon helpfully covered. When money is tight, it is the important things that are cut first: the touring; the outreach; the avant-garde and innovative performances.

But, at its best, opera really is like no other art form. I found myself in Milan at the end of last month on the centenary of the death of Giacomo Puccini, so I was able to make my first visit to La Scala. It was a wonderful evening and a very Italian experience; two and a half hours queuing for day tickets and then much of the orchestra and chorus were on strike. But hearing those arias in the theatre where they were premiered was spine-tingling, even with the handful of artists who performed.

Of course, as noble Lords have noted, we have wonderful opera in this country as well. It is an ecosystem with more than 100 producers of opera, but with the work anchored around the big companies whose names have rightly been on our lips today. I am glad the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, reminded us of the work of OperaUpClose. I have had great pleasure seeing them and companies such as Pegasus come into the national portfolio and receive funding: they, too, are essential to that ecosystem.

My noble friend Lady Noakes was right to point out the booming country house opera scene, often with no public subsidy. Audiences at Nevill Holt have grown at a rate of 15% a year. From Garsington to Glyndebourne, Grange Park to Holland Park, and so many more, there are many reasons to be optimistic. However, it is important that we support the proscenium arch—the big grand opera that is the pinnacle of this art form.

I will join the tributes that have been paid to English National Opera: the company, the board and others have weathered a turbulent period. I particularly single out Harry Brünjes, who bows out after a decade as chairman of English National Opera this year. He deserves all the praise, bouquets and garlands that ought to come his way, and he has done it without making friends in high places in the process. He has done the company a huge service, as indeed have Jenny Mollica and the team who carry on their brilliant work. We look forward to what they are doing in addition to their work at the Coliseum: their new partnerships in Manchester with organisations such as the Royal Northern College of Music, the Hallé Orchestra and Factory International. I am particularly looking forward to the “Einstein on the Beach” that they will be performing at Aviva Studios.

The benefits of opera are not just economic and social, as we have seen through ENO’s work on Breathe, which was mentioned in the Lancet and has won it a prize from the British Thoracic Society; the Welsh National Opera’s work with people suffering from long Covid; or the Royal Opera’s pioneering work on the Sound Voice Project, supporting medtech advances in the NHS for people with voice loss. There are huge benefits to this art form in so many ways. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can say anything about the growing interest in social prescribing: with these health benefits, is there an argument for using some of the other larger budgets we have across government to support the work that opera companies are doing?

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is right to say that opera speaks in many voices; even in a debate of much consensus, there has been some disagreement, or we would reach for different answers. I think a lot rests on the review of Arts Council England, which the previous Government set up in March and which the new Government have paused, understandably, in order to run it in their own way. I see that Sky News is today reporting that the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge of Barking, is to be picked as the new chairman of the review. I do not know whether the Minister can confirm that. If so, I am sure we will be delighted in your Lordships’ House to have easy access to her, although I do regret the way that Dame Mary Archer, who was selected in the last Parliament, was treated, not just over the review but as the prospective chairman of the Royal Parks.

Will there be an advisory panel? The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, very kindly agreed to sit on an advisory panel—I do not want to dragoon her into it again, but I think it is important, particularly if there is to be a party-political parliamentarian chairing the review, that we again make sure that it is a non-partisan and broad-based thing that can look at many art forms.

There are huge questions to ask, such as on the length of funding cycles; on whether there is a case for treating larger organisations differently, analogously, as the noble Lord, Earl Clancarty, says, to the way the national museums are funded; and on how we can avoid the cliff edges when decisions are made to stop funding—could we give companies advance notice? I firmly support the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, about the importance of supporting philanthropy: for every £1 the Royal Opera and Ballet gets, it raises £6 in private philanthropy. How can we use the honours system and the tax system to protect it? What can be done in the short term for the Welsh National Opera, which is indeed facing a huge funding pressure? Its staffing cost alone is £9 million. Is there an argument for exempting it from the rise in national insurance contributions to try to help it weather the storm until these answers can be reached?