Tour de force
Sir: The Arts Council does not need to apologise, as Rupert Christiansen suggests (Arts, 25 September), for its commitment to making high-quality opera available to a wider audience — especially those people who at present have little opportunity to enjoy opera. The question is how best to provide for this growing demand. In an attempt to find an answer in collaboration with all the cur- rent providers of opera, the Arts Council has decided to conduct a review of opera touring provision.
Rupert Christiansen suggests that English Touring Opera could provide for the needs of more theatres. The company has a very full schedule of touring dates and recent discussions with them have con- firmed that they cannot take on any more large-scale venues. Welsh National Opera and Opera North do not need to 'bid for GTO's patch'. They are already the princi- pal providers of opera at three out of the six venues Glyndebourne Touring visits.
The theatres that the Arts Council wants to supply are by no means small — we have defined them for the purposes of our forth- coming review of opera provision as 800- 1,350 seaters. GTO's new auditorium will seat about 1,100. It is perfectly arguable that Glyndebourne's musical qualities will actually be heard to best effect in auditoria of a similar size rather than 2,000 seaters like the Southampton Mayflower or the Manchester Palace.
The Arts Council's second chartered objective is to open the arts to all. The Touring Board takes very seriously its mis- sion to provide the widest possible range of high-quality performing arts throughout England. We very much hope that once the review has been completed GTO will con- tinue to bring joy to opera audiences across England.
Beverly Anderson
The Arts Council of Great Britain, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1
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