As Sounds Australia Bleeds, Opera Companies May Have Just Landed More Money

First things first: this is not a screed against opera as an art form. Opera, for all its ostentation, has inarguably contributed much to our cultural fabric, over its centuries of existence, and deserves at least a modicum of respect for that.

Still, you'll have to forgive the rest of us when we step back, breathe in and let out a measured and thoughtful string of unfiltered curse words having found out that the office of Arts Minister Mitch Fifield has just been advised to allot more than $20 million in incremental funding over the next four years to Australia's opera companies.

Among the 118 recommendations unveiled in the department's National Opera Review Final Report, released today, is a suggestion that the nation's operatic practitioners should see $24.136 million dished out over the next four years, starting at $6.392 million in the first 12 months and slightly decreasing year-on-year to see the sector receive $5.459 million (in 2015 dollars) in year four.

The money will be used for various pursuits including core funding, an opera conference, an innovation fund, administrative support for the Major Performing Arts Panel (MPAP) and an adjustment package for the ailing Opera Queensland, which is recommended to be given three years to turn around its declining performance and meet relevant criteria lest it risk being delisted as a Major Performing Arts Company (opera, theatre and dance companies that collectively receive 55% of the Australia Council's funding).

Interestingly, the review recommends that the money for this funding comes from new sources, rather than existing grants, as "taking funding from within existing arts grants funding would have serious implications for the rest of the sector".

This, in a year that saw Sounds Australia suffer the indignity of the Catalyst debacle back in May, despite the Australia Council avidly being champions of the industry organisation, having committed to provide four years' funding for the organisation earlier this year.

This, in a year that saw Sounds Australia recognised on the international stage for its peerless contributions to our global musical exports.

This, in a year that saw more than 6000 people lend their names to a petition protesting the funding cuts, and in which the government ultimately said, 'Up yours!' to us all and axed it anyway.

All of which raises the question: if there's a spare/unused $20 mil just friggin' lying around to be thrown at the opera sector, why is the rest of live music suffering?

Let's talk some more figures: opera's entire industry is demonstrably responsible for less than a tenth of the ticketing revenue generated by contemporary live music (about $42 million vs more than $600 million) — that's as of 2014, the most recent data available, and doesn't even include the money brought in by music festivals.

In fact, the collective revenue across the Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) — the umbrella organisation for the country's MPACs — was $342.5 million in 2014. Compare that with contemporary music's $604.96 million, in addition to a further $129.21 million from single-purpose festivals (which is probably an underestimation, given the apparent proclivity of smaller festivals to not submit their data to these things), and it's really not hard to see why the members of the live music community might have had a gutful of the excesses of "high art".

Regardless, the report maintains that its panel has "sought to be objective, rigorous and fact-based at the same time as engaging with and understanding the perspectives of multiple stakeholders", so maybe we're missing something.

The full National Opera Review Final Report contains 118 recommendations, and you can read them all (as long as your temper can take it) at the Arts Department's website.