How the money merry-go-round stopped and the arts’ cutback carousel took over

Carousel is, according to Stephen Sondheim, a musical “about life and death” and according to Time magazine “the best musical of the 20th century”.

No matter how you dress it up, Carousel is still a musical – and it is going to be performed by one of the world’s leading opera companies, an organisation more recognised for staging impressive, often serious, works of opera.

“Yes, there are a number of our regular subscribers who have made it clear that they won’t be coming to see this,” says Richard Mantle, general director of Opera North, the Yorkshire based company that opens Carousel at Leeds Grand Theatre tonight. The thinking behind staging a musical that has alienated at least some of its audience is that Opera North needs to find fresh blood and new audiences in what is an entirely new climate for the arts in the UK.

Carousel was always on the cards for the company, which has a long history of producing musicals supplementing more serious fare. Mantle admits the show was originally planned for next spring, but has been brought forward a year following the arts cuts which were handed out by the government last year and implemented by the Arts Council.

“Look, we’re not doing Carousel just because we’ve had a grant cut – but we suffered significantly,” says Mantle. “The loss we suffered is more than the turnover of many organisations and we had some difficult decisions to make about whether we should downscale the operation. But we took the decision that once you do that the quality suffers and value for money goes down the drain.

“Carousel is something we are staging that we hope will bring our work to new audiences in this new climate.”

While the musical will be produced to Opera North’s usual high standards and the loss of funding might not be apparent on the stage, it has been brought forward in the programme and that has happened because Opera North suffered a cut of 15 per cent in its Arts Council funding. In 2010, the company received £10.8m of public funding from the Arts Council, In the current financial year, it will receive £9.5m.

The decision to reduce the allocation to Opera North came as a result of the biggest funding shake-up to UK arts in the 65 year history of the Arts Council. Central government applied a cut of 29.6 per cent to the Arts Council, and told the organisation to make half of those funding cuts within its own walls, while applying cuts of 14.9 per cent to arts companies around the country. The Arts Council took the decision – considered brave by many – not simply to “salami slice” and apply an across-the-board 14.9 per cent cut to all, but to look at all the organisations it funded and make individual decisions about what the funding would be for each in the future. For some, that meant no funding.

Those that did receive funding, NPOs (National Portfolio Organisations) were given differing amounts. Some received more money than before, others less and many, who had their funding withdrawn entirely, wondered if they could continue at all after such a body blow.

The announcement was made almost exactly a year ago, and it is in this new financial year that these funding cuts come into play.

So what effect are the funding changes set to make to the arts in the region?

Cluny Macpherson, regional director for Arts Council Yorkshire, says that he expected – and has witnessed – the region’s creative community reacting creatively to the challenges the cuts have brought to the sector.

“I haven’t seen masses of organisations closing. What’s happened this year is that those companies we still fund have spent the year rejigging business plans and their models and preparing for the consequences of the cuts,” he says.

“I have witnessed a remarkable relentless activity that flies in the face of the difficulties. Yorkshire work was winning awards and had great profile across the country over the last 12 months, but I accept that this is going to be a much more testing year.

“The fact is I trust in artists in our region to overcome obstacles and find ways of telling stories with the resources at their disposal. Maybe the work won’t be as shiny as before, but I still believe the artists we have in the region will face the challenges head on.”

This is optimistic talk from the man who is the face of the Arts Council in Yorkshire. The message on the ground is a little different.

The cuts were compounded when local government announced it would cut funding to a number of arts organisations. That meant even companies who survived the Arts Council cuts were hit elsewhere.

Leeds-based Unlimited Theatre Company received an increase from the Arts Council of 67 per cent, but lost its funding from Leeds City Council. Jon Spooner, artistic director, says: “That decision was damaging. We’re continuing to produce work, but the council’s decision to not support us over the next three years means we will not be able to continue our award winning programme with schools in Leeds, which is massively disappointing.”

Other companies receiving bad news and looking to a darker future include Phoenix Dance Theatre. Lesley Jackson, chief executive of the company which received a 15 per cent cut, says: “Even before the cuts, we were funded at around half that of some of our closest peer companies in other parts of the UK. We have no fat to trim and further cuts to our operational and production budgets would soon begin to compromise the quality we are known for.

“Touring is financially risky – particularly in areas where we are still developing an audience. So the only way we can cover the recent round of cuts, most of which will impact this year, is to limit our touring. This means that fewer people will be able to experience our work and it will impact on our position as an ambassador for Yorkshire.”

When Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced the cuts, he said a greater emphasis had to be placed on philanthropy. Many balked at the suggestion that philanthropists were waiting in the wings to hand over money to arts organisations.

Opera North, says Mantle, has strengthened its corporate giving through its fundraising department, but many companies – Phoenix included – ironically don’t have the funds to pay for a fundraising department. Daniel Evans, artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, says: “We, like many other arts organisations, had to make significant changes to our business to secure a future. Inevitably, we have had to make some sacrifices. These have included some of our work with schools and some community activity.”

One of the companies that received a significant hit in the funding cuts was Leeds-based Red Ladder. The company was cut by 40 per cent, down to £160,000 and lost staff which means, says artistic director Rod Dixon, he and the remaining staff are working “four times harder to stand still”. Producer Chris Lloyd says: “ It will be a struggle and the artistic output will reduce – after all a £90,000 cut is massive.”

Wakefield Theatre Royal, which lost all of its £94,000 annual funding, bears out Cluny Macpherson’s observation that the creative sector has found creative solutions. Executive director Murray Edwards says the theatre looked to increase funding from other sources and has used financial support from Wakefield Council and an Arts Council grant to set up a development department.

Edwards says: “The outlook for this coming year is very positive, with an application already submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund for restoration.”

Whle Edwards is optimistic, those at another theatre in the region are less so. “Over the last three years, we have lost 20 per cent of our public funding,” says Sheena Wrigley, chief executive at West Yorkshire Playhouse. “This is a serious amount of money, which has an effect on the future of the Playhouse. We are no longer receiving funding for our schools touring company and facing the reality that our current show is the last West Yorkshire Playhouse will develop to go directly into schools.”

Given that the Arts Council’s motto is “Great art for All”, the concern with this scaling back of work for schools is that the concept becomes meaningless.

When the cuts were announced, Northern Ballet staff were vocal. They continue to be so.

A spokesman for the company says: “We’ve always been underfunded and further financial challenges rocked us to the core. The creation of new work and touring is at the heart of what we do. Each of these has been seriously challenged. We’ve worked extremely hard in the face of the cuts and the results have been worth the effort. Trusts and Foundations have been much more open to supporting a range of activities which in the past they might have refused.

“The money we have raised will secure our dancers and allow us to create a new production for 2013. Our concern is that this is not a sustainable situation. Private donations cannot replace public subsidy of the arts, and while the past year has been tough the real challenge lies ahead.”