I wrote in today's G2 arts diary here about culture secretary Andy Burnham's support for the idea of the Royal Opera House having a presence in Manchester. At the moment the notion is fluid, apparently: the options range from building a whole new opera house to the ROH's doing a few weeks each year in an existing theatre to its having an involvement in skills training.
It sounds like a grand idea – my first though was, what's not to like? But perhaps it is a little more complicated than it sounds. The regional touring opera companies exist in a delicate ecology where the appearance of granddaddy Covent Garden could damage their audience-base. Opera North comes to Salford; Glyndebourne on Tour to Stoke; Welsh National Opera to Birmingham. All are brilliant companies (and, you might argue, produce more interesting theatre than the Royal Opera). On the other hand, maybe the potential audience in Manchester and the north-west could easily take more opera – the city has, needless to say, a great and distinguished tradition of music-loving.
Andy Burnham's contention is that national companies should be properly national – that is, not confined to the south-east. Fine: but for the Royal Opera House and Manchester, how should that be translated into reality?
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