Intermezzo

ENO to blow £1/2 million on making opera "more mainstream"

Woman in Black at the Opera - Mary Cassatt

English National Opera - the same English National Opera that just lost £2.5m in a year - is to spend an estimated £500,000 on "a marketing campaign, which aims to make opera more mainstream". But at the same time promotes ENO as "the entertainment destination for the cultural cognoscenti". Broad - but narrow. Non-elitist - but elitist too.

We all know that opera companies need to market themselves, and marketing costs money. And ENO certainly need to do something to fill those acres of empty seats. But is spending more than 5% of annual box office income on sending conflicting messages the way to do it?

Audiences are not as stupid as some organisations think. If the price is right - and, crucially the quality is too - then people will flock to even the most challenging work. The Royal Opera House proved that decisively with packed-out houses for The Minotaur and Written on Skin. ENO need to address what they're selling before they think about how to sell it.

The $5,000 rhino

This Maurice Sendak-designed rhino costume raised $5,251 for the New York City Opera at auction last week.  It was one of 5,000 costumes and 1,000 props flogged off by the cash-strapped company, and one of the most lucrative. Many lots, including furniture and scenery, sold for bargain prices. A job lot of 32 'Sour Angelica  Nun Habits' [sic] went for just $6 each. 

But that won't have worried NYCO too much. The point of getting rid of 90% of their inventory, more than 80 productions' worth, was to save on storage costs. By no longer renting the storage facility, the company will save $500,000 a year. On a $14m budget that's one economy worth making.

See the full list of items sold together with prices here.

Arts Council's big opera shakeup

Just as ENO's staggering losses have emerged, it has been revealed that the Arts Council are taking a look at "new models that would enable opera and ballet to continue to thrive."

Or, reading between the lines, how they can slash opera and ballet funding without killing the artforms outright.

The review is at an early stage, and a formal report is due in late spring.

A Guardian article by Charlotte Higgins provides a reasonably balanced picture of the issues, but bear in mind while reading it that ENO's drop in public funding last year was matched by an equivalent rise in private funding, and her assertion that "artistically, the 2011-12 ENO programme was judged a success" seems to be missing a 'not'.

ENO - the bottom line

Not every opera company shares the rude financial health of the Paris Opera.

A big thank you to reader Susan, who spotted that ENO's 2012 results were sneaked out a few days ago without fanfare. When you see the numbers, you won't be surprised that ENO wanted to keep a lid on them. They paint a disturbing picture of a company on the brink of a financial precipice - no exaggeration.

Massive losses force Met's $100m bond sale

According to Bloomberg, swelling losses are behind the Metropolitan Opera's decision to raise $100m via the sale of bonds at the end of this week.

Losses from operations grew 7 percent last season to $135 million, the third consecutive  increase. At the same time, operating revenue fell to $170.2 million, an 8 percent drop.

The news gets worse. Box office for the first four months of 2012-13 is down on last season.

The bond issue will be used to repay $63.2 million in loans from Bank of America Corp and to cover operating needs. The Bloomberg article also highlights the the threat of unfunded pension obligations (= projected future pension payments not covered by the Met's pension fund itself).

The bonds are expected to be sold to institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies.

Kaufmann's cancellations cost dear

Zurich Opera's administrative director Otto Grosskopf has revealed that Jonas Kaufmann's illness earlier in the season cost the house 300,000 Swiss francs (around £200,000), leaving it barely scraping even over the year as a whole. 

Kaufmann cancelled two sold-out gala concerts in May at short notice, forcing then-Intendant Alexander Pereira to scramble for replacements. If he hadn't been able to persuade Edita Gruberova and Leo Nucci to step in, then the overall loss would have been an even bigger 800,000 francs (over half a million pounds) - a significant dent in the 134 million franc annual budget.

"This shows just how much we depend on stars," Grosskopf said.

Benson & Hedges' Carmen?

Cash-strapped ENO have just appointed advisers to help develop corporate sponsorships. These could, according to PR Week, include "a deal for the naming rights of its premises, the London Coliseum."

But why not the operas too? The Frizz-Ease Barber of Seville? Nurofen's Wozzeck? If it kept the prices down......

Daniel Barenboim scores a €20m birthday present

The news that the German government are to fund the maestro to the tune of 20 million euros comes just a few days before his 70th birthday. But he can't blow it all on ping pong and cigars.

Instead, the cash, spread over four years, will support the activities of Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. It's earmarked for the newly established Barenboim-Said-Akademie in Berlin, which aims to continue and extend the work of WEDO by offering musical training for up to 60 students from the Arab world.

The Academy, like Barenboim himself, is based in Berlin's Staatsoper, currently undergoing a €240m renovation. The grant will help create teaching and practice rooms. Also planned are a concert/rehearsal hall designed by Frank Gehry, who is providing his services pro bono, and a new chamber music hall which can be used by other artists when the Academy don't need it.

The cash injection is timely.  The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra's current principal funder, the Andalusian Regional Government, is just as empty-pocketed as the rest of Spain. The German government in contrast have just increased next year's cultural budget by 8% to a total of 1.28 billion euros.

The most expensive opera tickets in the world

Due to my exalted status as a 'Ring Subscriber', La Scala have kindly offered me the opportunity to buy tickets for this season's opening night, 7 December, when Daniel Barenboim will conduct Lohengrin with Jonas Kaufmann and (maybe) Anja Harteros.

But the opportunity to flaunt one's diamonds, furs and botox alongside the other waxy orange gargoyles doesn't come cheap. The top price of € 2,400 covers a range of box seating from front row in the 1st circle to second row in the 3rd. Few offer a perfect view. All the lowest price of € 600 will get you is a third-row box seat in the 4th circle, from which little will be either audible or visible.

Yet, as every year, and despite the Italian public's general disdain for Wagner, the show is bound to sell out. Yesterday's rare recital at La Scala by the great Rene Pape on the other hand was far from full. Perhaps the tickets weren't expensive enough.

Bayreuth black market is stronger than ever

A survey by the German newspaper Handelsblatt finds that the black market in Bayreuth Festival tickets is flourishing.

The open sale of tickets increased this year from 40% to 65%. When the newspaper analysed ticket sales on Ebay it found that black market sales have risen too.

So far, 524 tickets have been sold on Ebay. This is already more than the entire total for the previous year, and the  Festival is still a month away.

The average premium on the original price has increased slightly from 136% to 139%. The highest surcharge (217%) is for the new production of  Der Fliegende Holländer. In comparison Tristan und Isolde tickets are fetching around 80% more than the original price.

For the cheapest tickets, costing less than 35 €, the average premium was 550 %. For the most expensive category, originally € 280, the corresponding uplift was 50%.

How much does Jonas Kaufmann earn?

More than a few bob, if the Basler Zeitung is to be believed.

They worked out he's booked for 34 dates between mid-July (his planned comeback date) and the end of the year. His fee, they say, is 15,000 to 20,000 euros a night.

Which means he's on to make around 500,000 to 700,000 euros for less than 6 months work. If he's fit to perform, that is.

On top of the more obvious benefits, taking a few months off to optimise his vocal health looks like a smart business decision.

Covent Garden to raise new season prices

The Royal Opera House is to cut top ticket prices for some operas next season, claims the headline in the Evening Standard. The most expensive tickets for Tosca, for example, will be £175 instead of £210.

Buried inside the article is an explanation for the apparent largesse: "That price drop is being made up for by ticket prices elsewhere."

In other words, cheaper seats will cost more.

While the house itself increasingly becomes a rich man's ghetto, Covent Garden plan to sate the masses with an "ever-expanding programme of live performances relayed into cinemas."

39 things an opera house can buy for £50

According to the Royal Opera House's latest begging letter, this is what £50 buys them:

The real cost of German opera tickets

Cologne-based newspaper Express (a bit like our Express, with added t1ts) has trained its Thatcherite lens on the city's opera finances. High culture in Cologne is a huge loss maker, it rants - everyone in Cologne subsidises the entertainment of a few opera fans, many of whom don't even come from Cologne. And so on.

But there are a few interesting statistics tucked away.

An opera ticket in Cologne costs 10 to 90 € ("Aldi prices", sneer the Express, whose idea of a bargain clearly differs from most). The public subsidy from the city treasury is 165 € each (€ 50 million in total). Cologne's ticket prices are, they claim, the lowest of the major German opera houses, and the subsidy proportion is the largest.

They go on to quote a few comparisons. The Berlin Staatsoper charges 14-220 €, with a subsidy of 248 € per ticket.  At the Hamburg State Opera tickets cost 9-158 €, and the subsidy is 114 €. The Bavarian State Opera in Munich charges 5-195 € and the grant is 90 €.

To compare with the UK, the most recent publicly-available annual accounts of ENO show it earned £9 million in ticket income for £18 million in grants (all those £10 Travelzoo offers....) The corresponding figures for the ROH are £35 million box office and £28 million in grants.

Riccardo Muti reveals where his Birgit Nilsson prize money is going

Well, half of it anyway. 

Speaking to journalist Armando Torno on Italy's Radio 24, he disclosed that he'll be paying over nearly half of both the $1m Birgit Nilsson and the recently-awarded Paolo Borsellino prize money to the Italian taxman.

He took the opportunity to lash out at colleagues who criticise Italian political policies whilst living outside the country as tax exiles.  "That is their choice and everyone is free to do whatever he wants," he said,  "but you cannot keep up residence outside Italy and spit on your country."

Muti wisely mentioned no names, but the Italian papers were quick to point out that he might have been thinking of Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Ennio Morricone and Claudio Abbado, all of whom are or were Monaco residents at some point.

Ring circuit

 
Amongst the (dreary and outdated) financial information released yesterday by the Metropolitan Opera is tucked away a fascinating nugget - their assistant head electrician is named Richard Wagner. He made $417,548 in the year ending July 2009. This compares with Peter Gelb's $1.3 million, chorus master Donald Palumbo’s $461,617 and master carpenter Stephen Diaz's $415,377. Former general manager Joseph Volpe received $432,807 in pension benefits.

Thielemann trumps Pappano

 

Tony Pappano's widely-criticised £630,000 Royal Opera House salary looks a bit of a bargain compared with Christian Thielemann's pay as Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recently released statistics reveal Thielemann earns €800,000 (~£680,000). This makes him Munich's highest-paid public servant, easily trumping Munich's mayor (€153,921).

What does Munich get for its massive outlay? For a start, Thielemann conducts around 10 separate programmes a year in around 40 concerts, including touring. Programmes have to be repeated three or four times to cope with demand. Plus there's all the usual music director stuff - programming, marketing and so on. That all adds up to a significant workload  - but not quite a full time job. He still manages to fit in conducting slots with the Vienna Philharmonic and of course Bayreuth.

Pappano's workload is roughly 4 operas over 30 or so performances, which sounds less onerous until you factor in rehearsal time and the greater length of an opera programme. On top of that, as de facto artistic director of Covent Garden, he bears a greater non-conducting burden than many music directors. Pappano too finds time for the odd guest conducting slot, TV series, etc - not to mention heading the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia orchestra.

But at this level, it's not about the hours spent at the rockface. It's about quality - natural talent, sweat-honed skill and most of all, inspiration. Bureaucrats are interchangeable. Abundantly gifted conductors are few and far between.

Royal Opera House provides cheap tickets for multi-millionaire

 
"My wife and I go to the ballet regularly now and I'm signed up to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation's scheme providing cheap tickets to everyday folk."

That's what multi-millionaire author Andy McNab told the Sun today.

Cheap ticket scheme? What's that all about? The Paul Hamlyn Club was set up by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation "to encourage return visits by first time audiences for opera and ballet." It does this by providing up to 20 tickets at subsidised prices for each main stage performance throughout the year. Prices are £20 for opera and £12 for ballet.

The scheme is not means-tested, nor explicitly designed to benefit the poor. But I'm sure most of us (including probably the Paul Hamlyn Foundation itself) would rather see the subsidised tickets go to families who can't afford to pay full price.

I don't begrudge Andy McNab his wealth one bit. But shouldn't a man who told the Daily Telegraph "I don't travel first class out of principle – I go business class. I can't see the point of spending an extra four grand" be given orders to stump up the full whack at the double?

(Thanks to the ROH blog for the link)

How much does it cost to make a classical record?

 
Not as much as some might think.

“For a small- scale recital, it’s around 4,000 pounds ($6,280). If you involve a choir and orchestra, then we’re looking more in the region of around 15,000 pounds.”

Baritone (and ex-accountant) Mark Stone discusses his record company sideline with Warwick Thompson of Bloomberg.

Met sets new bragging record

The Met may not be able to balance its books, but it sure knows how to tart up the numbers. 

Sunday apparently set "a new record for opening day at the box office when single tickets for the 2010-11 season went on sale to the public yesterday. Total sales reached $2,653,676 (24,087 tickets) as compared to $2,505,793 (23,766 tickets) on the equivalent day last season, which was the previous record."

Pretty impressive, huh? One New York paper described it as a "high note". But look at those figures a little more closely.

The Met's total box office income last year was $93m. The $2,653,676 raised on the first day of sales is a mere 3% of this.

And house capacity is a smidgen under 4,000, so the 24,087 seats sold are the equivalent of just six full shows, out of a total 200-ish performances.

Of course the Met has already shifted a lot of tickets via subscription packages, which is why two of its new productions, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, are nearly sold out. But take a look at any other production and you'll see acres of empty seating. You can still buy seats - good ones - in almost any price category to see Anna Netrebko in Don Pasquale or Elina Garanca in Carmen. Unthinkable in any European house.

Peter Gelb must be crossing his fingers for record-breaking walk-ups to match.