the fight for scottish opera
WORKERS, JULY 2004 ISSUE
17 June, Edinburgh: Scottish Opera workers rally as part of the fight to save the company The controlled anger and solidarity in the picture says it all: three unions united to resist an attack on jobs and culture with BECTU, Equity and the Musicians' Union countering attempts to destroy Scotland's biggest employer of cultural workers, Scottish Opera. Significantly, it is they, the most solidly unionised in the arts, that the Scottish Executive view as a thorn in their side — with their Labour members rushing past last week's Edinburgh street protest with bowed heads.
Only a few independently minded MSPs came over to express sympathy, but the large crowds that gathered to hear the stirring brass-accompanied renditions of Verdi and choral folksongs are typical of the public support the campaign has galvanised. The media commentary and letters pages have been dominated by the controversy and surprisingly it is this realisation — that we have a world-class culture worth saving — that has begun tugging at the very foundations and fabric of "devolution" itself.
Disband
"Overpriced; consistently poor performances; unable to stick to budgets; elitist; time to disband? I refer not to Scottish Opera but to the Scottish Executive...I think the time may have come to disband the Scottish Parliament in favour of retaining our national opera company. When it comes to value for money, I know where my vote would go. It might even be worth considering a conversion of the Holyrood building to an International opera House. This could probably be managed within a tiny proportion of the original estimate and we could look forward to some real communication and proper drama involving true professionals."
The wit of the Daily Herald letter writer, George Wilson, summarised a growing sentiment. (Costs of the new parliament have grown tenfold to nearly £500 million) The true value of what is at stake has been ignored by these politicians; built up over decades has been an army of skilled specialists including stage managers, technicians, scenic artists and sound engineers. (Scottish Opera's home, the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, is being hired off to commercial interests with some dozens of job losses still to come). And with the axeing of the chorus (nearly 50 of the 90 redundancies projected), the spin-offs of voice tuition and community performances would be lost and the expertise so carefully nurtured at the Opera School in Glasgow would have an uncertain future. Talent would be dispersed, even overseas.
Then the orchestra of over 50 and its freelance players is in jeopardy during a period without a pool of singers and entering a "dark season" of nearly a year without a major production. The freelance musicians of the other major music theatre company — Scottish Ballet — could lose their future work if members of the opera orchestra are re-deployed.
If the music tuition activities of these highly skilled musicians is taken into account the consequences are debilitating at a time when efforts are being made to reintroduce instrumental teaching into schools, especially at primary and nursery level, recently recognised as invaluable to child development.
Only a crassly mistaken class analysis could deem opera as an art form to be politically incorrect or "elitist". Excellence and deeply reflective art and music belong to all and — as the picture shows — art workers can be at the forefront of struggle. Moreover, Scottish Opera has a track record of building opera as an indigenous art form, not just being content with the great classics from Italy, Spain or Russia. Wide-ranging subjects are explored — often exploiting opera's ability to reflect while time stands still — such as the moral dilemmas of Wilson's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Sally Beamish and Janice Galloway's explorations of Mary Shelley's life and ideas in Monster and David Horne's Thomas Muir (a martyr of resistance to early 19th-century repression). All this, and the classics, can capture anyone's imagination and covers a vast range of musical styles.
Pattern
The attack on Scottish Opera is part of a pattern. Wildcat Theatre and the 7:84 theatre company are just two of the sectors subject to cuts. The ballet company has already been downgraded, starved of funds: Richard Armstrong (he recently received the South Bank Show/Royal Philharmonic Society Award on behalf of Scottish Opera) asked:"The ballet went dark because the company was on its last legs...the opera is there delivering what is considered to be the best work of its kind in the UK. Shut it down — why?"
The music critic Kenneth Walton added: "What we witnessed last week from the Executive was an act of cultural vandalism. This is an administration that has enshrined mediocrity as a standard for Scotland...A Labour government handing over £7.5 million to fire 80 people is possibly the most political act so far in the short life of the Scottish Executive."
In fact the Executive's attempt to steer a wider cultural policy is in disarray, upset by the resignation — even before its commission started work — of the Oscar-nominated composer and MU member Craig Armstrong (he wrote the music for the recent film version of Graham Greene's The Quiet American). Meanwhile prominent composer James MacMillan described the ex-SAC chief James Boyle as caving in to political masters and as "someone who will do down in history as the man under whom the opera had been destroyed". The SAC is also seen to have lost the trust of the opera employees and their unions by having devised a secret plan to replace the opera entirely with a "commissioning body".
BECTU regional treasurer Douglas McGill, senior shop steward at the company, expressed his deep unhappiness that "yet again the management has managed to overspend its budget by a reported £4 million" and that the Scottish Executive "can apparently find £5 million not to pay off the deficit but to pay for redundancy settlements".
Pledging to create an alternative vision to save the opera company in its entirety, a packed meeting of the Federation of Entertainment Unions brought the three unions together on 9 June and agreed that "The three unions are all committed to opposing redundancies in the company and are committed to fighting to save the full time jobs in the company. The Unions reject the proposals and reaffirm the importance of keeping the component parts of the component parts of the company together."