OPERA—IF YOU WILL
TATELY there has been so much ineffectual talk about establishing English opera " on a permanent basis " that one is tempted to let the subject rest. After all, if the whole country is hungering for this kind of entertainment, as the advocates of National Opera declare, then, sooner or later, the thing is bound to come. We are not so poor in musical resource that we cannot supply opera, and, this assured, the problem dwindles into a matter of elementary economics and may be left to right itself. Unfortunately, the question has none of this delightful simplicity. There is certainly an active opera-going public in all our large cities, and perhaps this will eventually absorb the inactive opera- listening public created by broadcasting, but if adverse balance-sheets and small audiences mean anything, then our present meagre supply of opera more than meets the existing demand. This is a serious defection on the part of a nation that wants more opera, and it is not without precedent. For two centuries well-meaning people have squandered their energies and their money on this same white elephant—a permanent English opera—and always they have met failure and often ruin. Of course, social conditions have changed and most of these experiences are irrelevant to-day, but between Herr Rosa's abortive ventures in the 'seventies and the disastrous end to Sir Thomas Beecham's work there is discernible only a small growth in public interest, an iota of change in our historical attitude of indifference to Grand Opera.
Obviously an opera public must exist before this dream of a national art can come true. The Promenade Concerts of to-day would be futile without the arduous thirty years 04 preparation, of titillating the public ear and then subtly leading it on to better things, the years of intensive education, which lie behind Sir Henry Wood's achievement. Generally, our musical taste has improved, not so much as a nation, but amazingly among people susceptible to cultivation. The counterpart of the old oratorio public now goes to hear Beethoven's Choral Symphony and the Passions of Bach. Better music is taught in schools and the standard of teaching is higher. There is actually a constellation of British composers whose works are performed and even appre- ciated. So we may fairly claim that the pulse of our musical life beats more strongly than it did thirty years ago. But democratic opera is another matter. Good choral and instrumental music have become increasingly accessible ; opera has been until lately an exclusive institution, a Society rite, and measured by the purse of the ordinary man the charges are still prohibitive. Far from being " the form of musical art which appeals most easily and effectively to the masses of the people " (I quote from National Opera propaganda), opera has had few opportunities for making any appeal. Indeed, when the Broadcasting Company increased the number of opera performances in its programmes, there immed- iately came an outcry, whether representative or not there is no telling, against " Too Much Opera." If that was a true ballot from those millions of listeners, then here is an end to all our schemes. No ! there is only one thing to do, let us begin, as Sir Henry Wood did, at the beginning. Such opera we now have must be preserved, improved, augumented as soon as there is real need, and from the first it must be cheaper. Then our national education can begin.
Everyone realizes by now that opera in England is incapable of paying its own way. In European countries where opera-going is a national habit, and where the difficulties of production are negligible compared with our own, the State provides a subsidy as a matter of course. Yet; were a State subsidy possible here, in theory at least we are opposed to it. We have seen enough of Continental methods to know that the nine- and-ninety disadvantages of offieialized art more than outbalance the remote chance we have of acquiring anything- comparable with the opera at Dresden or Vienna. In most of the remedies prescribed for English opera it is proposed to raise, by public subscription, a fund from which endowments could be made, and it happens that the latest scheme to appear is also the most reasonable and deserving of success. The National Opera Trust* appeals for a capital sum of £500,000 to be permanently invested in Government securities. Grants would be made solely from the resulting income, which seems scarcely adequate, to any worthy British or Colonial Opera company approved by the Trust. 'Primarily its object is to adopt a more or less parental relationship towards the British National Opera Company, to sustain it through financial embarrassments and to assure its full development. Ii short, the policy of this " legal charity," described by Lord Clarendon a 'week ago, is to educate the public in opera, and as this is the one real solution to our opera troubles, the Trust .most certainly deserves support.
While we naturally favour the comparative sobriety of the Trust's appeal, Mr. Isidore de Lara's very ambitious projectt for an endowed opera house in London must not be forgotten. It may seem ridiculous to talk of building a new opera house before an audience has been found to fill it, hut, taking a long view, and bearing in mind the many admirable details of this scheme, with which everyone should become acquainted, let us say at least that it might succeed by its very boldness. Mr. de Lara could well modify his original idea. To call a London opera house " national " and to appeal to the nation at large for its support is an error typical of the " metropolitan " mind: Let us aim at a municipal opera house—on the lines drawn by Mr. de Lara. Of course, the London opera-goer alone could not provide the necessary capital, but it would surely be to the interest of our great houses of commerce to bring into existence an institution that would in all likelihood become a supreme attraction to visitors. All this is no more than an airy hope. At present, the least ambitious of our attempts to ensure the welfare of opera in England will indeed have a hard struggle for fulfilment. There are more apathy, more ignorance and prejudice to be over- come than are dreamed-of in the philosophy of our operatic idealists.
CECIL HANN.
*Particulars from the Hon. Organiser, National Opera Trust, 199 Piccadilly, W. 1. t Particulars from Mr. Isidore de Lara, Claridge's Hotel, Brook Street, W. 1.
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