Money is phantom of the arts

Financial difficulties are not new for professional performing arts companies, but 1998 must be marked as a year where the magnitude of the problems were of Wagnerian proportions.

Just like Wagner's The Ring, the boom-or-bust fortunes of companies either visiting or associated with Auckland seem to go through a regular cycle.

Take the financial abyss confronted by the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which faced closure near the end of 1997.

Several tense months of negotiations resulted in the Cultural Affairs Minister, Simon Upton, bailing out the company to the tune of an extra $1.125 million in May this year.

The company now receives $3.25 million for its 1998-1999 year, to be increased to $3.95 million annually after that, direct from the Government.

Don't forget the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, which 18 months previously went through its own financial crisis, where once again Government helped by wiping out a $1.125 million debt run up by the orchestra as well as boosting its public funding by $2 million.

And now it would appear it is the turn of Opera New Zealand to face empty coffers, with news in November that its survival depended on the success of Macbeth and a much more positive box-office for its 1999 season.

Whether the Government should intervene in arts activities is a moot point, with arguments raging both for and against.

Companies may have solid management and excellent marketing, but if audiences stay away and don't like the show, the results are clear.

And yet the question of financial survival and continued sustainability is much more complicated than the simple equation of market forces ruling.

The funding alternative of corporate sponsorship is often held up as a possibility, yet arts companies were not helped by an increasingly tight sponsorship situation in 1998, with both the Royal New Zealand Ballet and Opera NZ losing major sponsors.

Whether a performing arts company avoids the constant cycle of financial disaster depends on a balancing act that would be the envy of any medium-sized business; a blend of tight budgetary control, a coordinated approach between the artistic side and management and, above all, knowledge of the audience.

The professional performing arts companies in Auckland could possibly learn a thing or two from some rank amateurs.

Monteverdi's Vespers, held in June at Holy Trinity Cathedral, was the brainchild of conductor Rita Paczian.

Her small orchestra had musicians trained in early music performance techniques, and on this occasion singers from choirs throughout Auckland joined forces for the sell-out concert that wowed the audience and bank balance alike.

And in September the organisers of Handel's Julius Caesar also took to heart an old marketing adage of creating a specialist niche.

It proved to be the first Handel opera to be presented in Auckland, the first Julius Caesar opera for New Zealand and the first opera to be seen in the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Both productions were outstanding artistic successes, staged without the benefit of much private sponsorship, nor for that matter, any Government funding.
- Tara Werner, music critic

Pictured: Jud Arthur as Banquo performs in Macbeth which Opera New Zealand needed to be a financial success for the survival of the company. HERALD PICTURE / MARTIN SYKES