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between three companies. It does not come to the Royal Opera, but to the Royal Opera , th Royal Ball t and the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. We don't get all that much more subsidy per seat than other people. We provide many more performances of ballet and opera than other peopl , bur fewer of opera. I have to say that the figures l saw a. a member of the board vhen l joined a coup! of years ago wer pretty shattering and depressing, because I oking merely at sustaining the son of lev 1 of production that the house has been used to over the next three years (and the Arts Council has recently invited us to submit three-year plan instead o f one-year) we were at one moment talking in term o f a defici1 of £10 million over the period, which would have been way beyond the capacity of this house to shoulder. l r can't borrO\\, because how can it repay what it borro"· ? 11 wa ne essary for th board und r a ne\\' chairman to look at those figures and take some action , and the a tion we were forced to take was to put up sear prices drastically and to invite th Royal Opera House Trust, vhich is the body that raises corporate money, to try and increase the funds they could provide us with each year, year on year. As a result o f that, and o f seeking whatever e onomies we could in the way tha t the house is run without diminishing, indeed enhancing, the level o f adventure and risk-ta king in the repertor y, we ha ve succeeded pretty well in eliminating that deficit, anyway o n a forward projection. I very much regret that it 's necessary to put up the highe t seat pri ces to the extent tha t we ha ve, though they are no t ve ry far out o f line with Milan , Paris, Munich and so on . l t hasn't been easy to do it , but it was absolutely essential, and I should be very unhappy if I though t tha1 it meant that we had to trim the repertory because we were no longer attracting opera-lovers . Obvio usly we tried as hard as we could to hold down the middle and lowest prices, so that the effect of the government subsidy through the Arts Council is actually to subsidize the cheaper seats much more than the expensive ones . Rich people pay a ve ry high price relative to the subsidy per seat, and of course corporate su bscribers pay even more than th e ticket price for the seats that they have through the season . So these were necessary measures and short of, to come back to your point about go vernment funding, more generous funding from the state, there was no alternati ve . RM: Has there been, or will there be, resistence to those prices? JI: Experience so far is remarkably encouraging. When the house is doing something marvellous like Bernard's Figaro, we were virtuall y sold out. On the other hand, when we had productions that ha ve done less we ll , like the Boheme at the start of the season (partly mucked up by the strike, partl y because there had been Bohemes in the previous season) or the Elisir that didn 't qu ite have the zing that we'd hoped for , then those audiences were down . RM: Can you explain briefly why sea t prices in America seem to be cheaper? JI: If we're talking about the Met, I suspect it's becau se they've got 4,000 seats. BH: And there 's an enormous amount of pri vate funding there because of tax arrangements that we don't ha ve here. I don 't know the ins and outs of it, but I do know that the tax situation for rich people in America is much more favourable for encouraging private sponsorsh ip than here, and that 's very important. JI: What we say to government through the normal intermediary bodies is, 'if you feel that yo u don 't want to fund the arts through in creased direct subvention, then at least make it more attracti ve for either priva1e or corporate benefactors to find 404
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a way of helping'. Because it 's society that needs the arts to flourish, to build something for th e future and sustain the heritage of the past. BH: In my view one worrying aspect-and yo u must correct me if I am wrong, Jeremy-is that private sponsorship is fine, but it could endanger your long-term planning , because while you know what yo u can get next yea r , yo u don 't know what you wi ll get in four years time. JI: There is nothing to do expect make the best assumptions you can about what will be the le ve l of different sorts of fu nding, put together a repertory th a t does the house credit , that creates some ripple of excitement-and cross in g our fingers we hope for much more than that-and then say 'thi s is the financia l basis on which we put this plan forward: it seems to work, and let's now hope that our assumptions a re made good'. But of course, as Bernard says, th e assumption as to what pri vate funding may be in three yea rs time can only be an assumption: there's no guarantee that the money will be there. RM: Do yo u go a long with the general fee li ng that a p ri vate sponsor prefers to fund something that is safe? BH: Yes, we're ti ll trying to ge t money for Rheingold next season, let alon e for Walkiire or Golterddmmerung-we do n't know , we s till have to find it. And of course there was the Parsifal c ri si : last yea r there was no money for Parsifal. I have learned the le so n that if yo u fight, yo u get something. JI: We have different ources of funding-for in stance the Friends of Covent Garden, a body of some 19,000 people who through their sub scriptions provide a surplu s. They are hugely helpful when we need to do omething that we can't find a corporate spo nsor for. Let me ju t say that-and I don 't want to go on about thi s for ever, because I promise yo u money is the least of our problem -the house would be infinitel y better off if there were suffici ent private funding to operate some so rt of endowment. If a magic wand were waved and a vas t sum were made available to us th at pro vided an inco me of millions a year, then life would be much easier. But until that happens, we go on fighting. RM: If money isn 't your greatest problem , what is? JI: To be the best house in th e wor ld! BH: Opera is so acc ident prone, as we a ll know , and especially at the so rt of leve l at which we try to operate. It 's always a hi ghl y risky enterprise. RM: Do yo u think that international opera is getting more risky al l the time? BH: Yes , but I get a bit upset at the word 'international'. I think we shou ld call it 'quality' opera. So many British si ngers are now of the highest rank art istica ll y that 'international ' is not a matter of passport but of standard . What I hope , and I know Jerem y and Paul hope too, is that if we can't create a company as such , we can create a family of performers who want to be here, want to come back here, and want to play their part a t Covent Garden. One good example is Tom A llen , who was so bowled over by last year's Figaro that he said he wanted to come back more and please cou ld we work at it. Correct, Paul? PF: Yes. Although singers of hi s stature wi ll be in demand throughout the wor ld , it ought to be possible to persuade Tom (who doesn't need persuading) to spend more 405

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a way of helping'. Because it 's society that needs the arts to flourish, to build something for th e future and sustain the heritage of the past. BH: In my view one worrying aspect-and yo u must correct me if I am wrong, Jeremy-is that private sponsorship is fine, but it could endanger your long-term planning , because while you know what yo u can get next yea r , yo u don 't know what you wi ll get in four years time. JI: There is nothing to do expect make the best assumptions you can about what will be the le ve l of different sorts of fu nding, put together a repertory th a t does the house credit , that creates some ripple of excitement-and cross in g our fingers we hope for much more than that-and then say 'thi s is the financia l basis on which we put this plan forward: it seems to work, and let's now hope that our assumptions a re made good'. But of course, as Bernard says, th e assumption as to what pri vate funding may be in three yea rs time can only be an assumption: there's no guarantee that the money will be there. RM: Do yo u go a long with the general fee li ng that a p ri vate sponsor prefers to fund something that is safe? BH: Yes, we're ti ll trying to ge t money for Rheingold next season, let alon e for Walkiire or Golterddmmerung-we do n't know , we s till have to find it. And of course there was the Parsifal c ri si : last yea r there was no money for Parsifal. I have learned the le so n that if yo u fight, yo u get something. JI: We have different ources of funding-for in stance the Friends of Covent Garden, a body of some 19,000 people who through their sub scriptions provide a surplu s. They are hugely helpful when we need to do omething that we can't find a corporate spo nsor for. Let me ju t say that-and I don 't want to go on about thi s for ever, because I promise yo u money is the least of our problem -the house would be infinitel y better off if there were suffici ent private funding to operate some so rt of endowment. If a magic wand were waved and a vas t sum were made available to us th at pro vided an inco me of millions a year, then life would be much easier. But until that happens, we go on fighting. RM: If money isn 't your greatest problem , what is? JI: To be the best house in th e wor ld! BH: Opera is so acc ident prone, as we a ll know , and especially at the so rt of leve l at which we try to operate. It 's always a hi ghl y risky enterprise.

RM: Do yo u think that international opera is getting more risky al l the time?

BH: Yes , but I get a bit upset at the word 'international'. I think we shou ld call it 'quality' opera. So many British si ngers are now of the highest rank art istica ll y that 'international ' is not a matter of passport but of standard . What I hope , and I know Jerem y and Paul hope too, is that if we can't create a company as such , we can create a family of performers who want to be here, want to come back here, and want to play their part a t Covent Garden. One good example is Tom A llen , who was so bowled over by last year's Figaro that he said he wanted to come back more and please cou ld we work at it. Correct, Paul?

PF: Yes. Although singers of hi s stature wi ll be in demand throughout the wor ld , it ought to be possible to persuade Tom (who doesn't need persuading) to spend more

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