ENO…again.

Well ENO is in the news again, this time for the proposed cuts to their orchestra and the ensuing resignation of Music Director Martyn Brabbins.

First, let’s look back. Almost a year ago ENO had their ACE funding halved, were only awarded it for one year, and were told they’d have to move out of London in 12 months time. ENO proceeded to mount an absolute blinder of a campaign to save itself. Very cleverly, it didn’t major on job losses or the affect on artists or composers. I say this because any job loses will appear tiny to the public and politicians (witness over 10,000 losing their jobs at Wilko’s with no one batting an eyelid), and to be honest most people don’t care any more for artists and composers than anyone else losing their jobs. Instead ENO talked about the affect on the wider public. On audiences, on young people no longer able to access discounted or free tickets, on those touched by their Breathe programme and so on.

The second clever thing was that they got this story out of the classical bubble. It was in mainstream news (not just the arts pages) and morning TV. Celebrities you’d definitely not associate with opera got involved on social media.

And the result of this clever campaign? ENO, amazingly, got its funding back for 3 years and ‘only’ had to leave London at the end of this period. Kudos to those at ENO who mounted such a brilliant and passionate campaign - the management (more of them later).

ENO’s recent production of Peter Grimes

ENO have always been upfront in saying that things still won’t be easy. Money has to be spent on studies and preparation for a move out of London (about 10% of their funding). About 10% of funding is ‘lost’ thanks to inflation and they gave an indication that while they’d still work at the London Coliseum, it would be for less of the year, and that work out of London wouldn’t be in traditional theatrical settings, but more site specific, presumably to ensure they do something different to the other opera companies which already serve areas out of London.

It was a not a huge surprise to me therefore that an announcement was made that 19 musicians would be made redundant and that the rest of the orchestra would be moved onto part time contracts. It doesn’t take much to connect an effectively smaller budget and new way of working with needing a smaller, more flexible orchestra. But of course classical music social media went into meltdown decrying the decision, blaming people, tagging MPs and so on.

I hate to be heretical but is a part time, smaller orchestra really such a bad thing? It’s a lot better than….no ENO at all, which is what we were looking at less than a year ago. Plus no one suggests that orchestras like Aurora, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Symphony Orchestra, which are entirely freelance and size flexible aren’t superb orchestras. Of course it’s desperately sad that people will lose their jobs and it may indeed be hard for orchestra members to secure work to fill their diaries, but the sad truth is that classical music and opera is funded to a size far bigger than the actual market can sustain.

And Martyn Brabbins’s resignation. ENO put out a statement saying how surprised they were by this, for which they also got howls of disapproval. But I know, having reported to and served on several boards, that as Music Director Martyn WOULD have been party to all these decisions. I am sure the board, including him, thoroughly interrogated the proposals and he would have been part of the sign off of the plans. If he disagreed with them that would have been the moment to resign. Of course, there will be board minutes to prove this.

It’s at this point that a very ugly new trend seems to have emerged - blaming management and the board. There’s a (largely true) saying that if a concert or performance does well at the box office then it must be the programming that was great, and if it does badly it must be the marketing that was wrong, and this all had a whiff of that. No hint of gratitude for management saving the entire ship. No, the management was ‘clearly’ in the wrong despite  the fact they had very clearly signalled that ACE’s instructions would necessitate a new way of working. 

What I really find hard to bear is this implication that management are inept, over-paid or somehow actively malign (or perhaps all three). First, the vast majority of people who work in arts management do so because they love it and want the sector to grow and flourish. No one goes into it to sack musicians. Second, every person who gets into it, like the artists, has forgone a more lucrative career to do so. I was just last week noting an entry level job being advertised at £18,000, barely minimum wage. You generally don’t give up a more lucrative career unless you love what you do. Sure, the CEO of ENO will be on a much larger salary (though hugely smaller than a comparatively sized commercial company) but with that comes the enormous job of running a company - contactable 24/7, night after night at the theatre, managing a staff of 100’s. I’ve only run much smaller organisations and it was relentless and exhausting, I can’t begin to think how it intense it must be to run something like ENO. 

All of this said, I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for the orchestra (and now chorus), wondering about their jobs, having that question mark over their heads while continuing to perform. But similarly, can you imagine being a staff member right now at ENO? Working long hours, having worked your socks off to save the company and now being berated left right and centre on social media? It must seem thankless. And it’s not just ENO. I know colleagues across the classical sector absenting themselves from social media just to isolate themselves from the toxic comments, sadly often from musicians, online. The effect on staff morale right across the arts can’t be underestimated.

And there’s the board. I’ve seen so many posts that say ‘it all comes back to the board’, the ‘chair must resign’ and the like. I’d love to know exactly why. Because the much much more irresponsible thing would be to continue business as usual and run out of money entirely in 3 years time. And let's remember, that board members are all unpaid, give significant amounts of time and expertise and, for the most part give large amounts of money too. Being demonised on social media will not make this an appealing prospect for current or potential future board members. The Chair stepping down at a difficult time will not do anything other than destabilise the company and make some keyboard warriors feel a bit smug.

And of course the other organisation to be demonised is Arts Council England. I’ve referenced this in my prior ENO post, but yes while they may have got this one wrong, the staff of ACE don’t deserve abuse more than anyone else. They also work at the Arts Council because guess what, they love the arts. And be careful with what you wish for. The alternative to an arms-length body like Arts Council England is funding being awarded directly by government, and who would have wanted the likes of Nadine Dorries being directly responsible for awarding funding?

Now of course, staff and board are not beyond criticism (neither are artists). But blanket assertions of incompetence with nothing firm to back it up are not the way to do it, and simply drive a wedge between people who basically all want the same thing. ENO has done amazingly to retain it’s funding and I think that it’s new model could, with imagination, be something brilliant - a way for ENO to reach more audiences (because lets not forget it’s about audiences really, not artists, not management, not the board), with greater geographic spread, with it’s unique mix of repertoire and mission. With a little more dialogue and a little less shouting down of people on social media ENO could still have a very bright future.