End of the aria as opera falls on hard times

From FT:

"How does a notoriously expensive art form such as opera stay healthy when the economy itself is sick? This is the pressing question faced by opera companies across the world as funding shrinks and audiences dwindle.

From Baltimore to Berlin, opera houses have been ailing as private and government donations dry up. Of course, compared with the bang of the current recession, the troubles faced by opera houses are something of a whimper. But with closures, cancelled productions and more empty seats, the challenge is working out a sustainable future for themselves now that the boom has gone.

Both the European and US opera industries are in crisis, with house directors frantically trying to plug funding holes ripped by the recession. While Europeans reel from government funding cuts, Americans struggle to cope with shrunken endowment funds, disappearing donors and a drop in ticket sales.

Nowhere has the crash been more devastating than in the US. Reliant upon wealthy private donors and endowments, which have slumped, opera houses face the new decade with a serious lack of cash. Usually more expensive than their state-subsidised European counterparts, their high ticket prices have also thinned out the middle market, emptying a worrying number of seats in the stalls."

One bright spot? London:

In spite of this ingrained wariness, the British opera scene – or at least its London flagships – boasts a dirty little secret. Quietly and cautiously, it is actually doing rather well. Houses are often full, reviews are glowing – and money continues to flow in. Instead of collapsing, donations to opera houses by individuals went up by 10 per cent in 2009, with donations by businesses rising 7 per cent. Last year’s overall figures show a drop in private donations, but the figures for the preceding year were artificially spiked by a massive one-off bounce – a £10m donation from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to Covent Garden. If Britain’s donors are relatively hard up, they are not showing it.

Go figure. The irony of this, as the article confirms, is that England doesn't have the operatic tradition of the continent, and while Convent Garden is important, it isn't La Scala.