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Opera in crisis: leaders warn sector issues go beyond funding woes

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Opera figures including Adele Thomas, Laura Canning and Naomi Pohl (above) spoke to Katie Chambers about the issues hampering the sector, including a ‘barrage of abuse’ aimed at women and institutionalised racism

News that Welsh National Opera is to strip back its 2024/25 season has dealt yet another blow to a sector already reeling from funding cuts in the last Arts Council England funding round, in which opera emerged as the biggest loser. The plight of English National Opera has mostly dominated headlines, but WNO’s latest move, which follows plans to reduce the working weeks of its orchestra, demonstrates the broader picture of a sector in crisis.

All of this comes against a backdrop of other worrying issues facing the art form, with a recent Arts Council England analysis finding the sector was making “slow” progress on diversity, as marginalised groups in the workforce reported they could feel excluded amid “demographically homogenous” decision-makers.

Published in March, the analysis also noted that the platforming of new work was often thwarted by financial risk, with commissioners struggling to justify the expense of an opera without a pre-existing fanbase.

When asked how the sector should respond to this funding crisis, Adele Thomas, a leading opera director who has worked for companies such as the Royal Ballet and Opera and Glyndebourne, told The Stage: “The thing that will kill opera is homogeneity.”

She added: “Finding diverse, radical new voices, even at the risk of angering people, is vital to opera’s survival.”

For Thomas and a number of other leading figures in opera and classical music, progress on diversity and inclusion cannot be postponed until the sector weathers its economic challenges, but rather is essential to its continued existence.

Thomas, in particular, highlighted the “barrage of abuse” suffered by women working in opera.

She said: “The critical response that any feminist interpretation gets greeted with has forced [opera] to give us a flatter representation of what women are.”

Describing the abuse she had seen female directors subjected to in reviews of opera, Thomas argued: “Women are not allowed to fail. They don’t get a second chance. Men are allowed to fail over and over again.”

Thomas detailed how numerous female singers whom she was directing expressed gratitude to be able to discuss their characters with her during rehearsal, having often had direction that focused on their appearance.

“I do think things are positively changing,” Thomas continued. “I can see women being prioritised now as directors and conductors. But maybe one day a woman director will be able to just talk about art, not just about being a woman.”

This is a concern shared by Opera North general director and chief executive Laura Canning.

“Without question, I have seen clear and unpleasant sexual harassment,” she told The Stage, “but I’m not sure that’s because I’m in opera. It’s everywhere.”

Canning commended a “huge increase” in female directors of the art form, but added that “from a race perspective, we have much further to go”.

She also echoed Thomas’ concerns about persistent sexism in opera reviews, particularly productions aiming to find a feminist approach to classical work.

“We are at the tail end of a generation of opera critics who don’t question how much of their opinions are [based on] internalised misogyny rather than a genuine reaction to what is in front of them,” Canning said. “No criticism of them – it wasn’t what they were asked to do at the time of learning their trade. But it has to change.”

Musicians’ Union general secretary Naomi Pohl agreed this was a particular area of concern.

Despite noting more conversations about inclusivity within the sector, Pohl told The Stage that sexual harassment was still a “live issue”, and that she still sees “regular reports” to the MU’s Safe Space service, where musicians can share instances of gender-based discrimination.

Pohl’s comments follow a survey by the MU last month, which revealed that half of women in music have experienced gender-based discrimination, with a third alleging they have been sexually harassed.

‘The opera sector is facing a funding crisis, which may mean the focus is not on changing the culture but just on survival. But that’s not an excuse’ Naomi Pohl, Musicians’ Union

Pohl also identified a lack of progress on the inclusion of disabled musicians in orchestras.

“It feels depressingly like the sector can only take on trying to improve things for one group of people at a time,” she said. “Inclusion is about equality for everyone.”

Pohl added: “The fact is there are people in positions of power who want to protect their positions of power. There is a will to change, but it takes time, and actually sometimes it takes people stepping aside in order for new voices to come through, and [leaders] aren’t very inclined to do that.

“The orchestral sector and the opera and ballet sectors are facing a funding crisis at the moment, which might mean that the focus is not really on changing the culture but just on survival. But that’s not an excuse. We still need to do this important work.”

For Bill Bankes-Jones, founder and artistic director of Tête à Tête and former chair of the Opera Music Theatre Forum, ACE’s analysis was not a surprise.

He told The Stage: “Opera at scale has cultivated an audience that wants to see old stories of women being tormented by men in different ways, which is really problematic to me, but then they say we can’t [stage] new opera because our audience doesn’t want it. They’re stuck in a rut.

“Opera, and probably all of us, is institutionally racist, but it’s full of very nice people who would be horrified to be called institutionally racist. They can’t see it; they can’t understand it.”

Meanwhile, Roger Wilson, director of operations of Black Lives in Music, commended the sector’s recent “energy” towards increasing its diversity, but added that in marking the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd next May, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, he wanted BLIM to take stock of the sector’s progress.

“I think we’ll see some organisations that have reflected and made some change, and others that are still hiding,” he said.

Wilson also urged that progress towards racial equality should not preclude efforts to include other marginalised groups in classical music.

“I’ve worked in every West End pit in London,” he told The Stage, “and I can’t think of more than two or three that are wheelchair accessible. I don’t hear anyone talking about it, I don’t hear anyone saying we must sort this out.”