Has the fat lady sung yet?

Well so much for my self-imposed exile from writing in January!  I had to take time this weekend to write after a big, juicy arts story broke this week in Hamilton, echoing news from both New York and Italy in recent months.

Opera Hamilton, in spite of having two years in the financial win column, succumbed to the cash crunch this week, cancelling the remainder of the current season.  They were supposed to perform their annual Popera shows this weekend - always a fun event - and the spring production of Bizet's Carmen, which would have been a guaranteed money maker.

According to Executive Director Stephen Bye, there simply wasn't enough money on hand to carry on, meaning wages and other expenses still outstanding after the fall production of Verdi's Falstaff will now be up in the air for at least a while longer.

This is not the first time Opera Hamilton has been in dire financial straits.  I recall several years ago speaking with the then Executive Director and when he was asked how they were planning to alleviate the cash crunch then, his answer left me shaking my head and doubting the financial viability of the company even then.  There just didn't seem to be a decent rescue plan in place, although clearly they did live to sing another day, as it were.

Don't get me wrong:  I have been to many Opera Hamilton performances over the years and always found them to be cleverly staged and well cast.  Audiences were coming out and everything seemed fine.  However, making an opera company viable that close to the shadow of Toronto's Canadian Opera Company might have been part of the problem.

For many smaller opera companies and indeed some larger ones, they share expenses for productions, so the sets and costumes can travel to different cities as needed.  In this day and age, that is the only viable option for smaller companies willing to take the risk on a co-funded production.  It isn't perfect, but it is often the only way they can survive.

News came in Thursday about Opera Hamilton's demise, and the following day the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra issued a statement stating their regret for the Opera Hamilton situation, and in a gesture of camaraderie are offering opera fans in the area who purchased tickets to Opera Hamilton performances cancelled prior to January 8th a ticket of comparable value to any one of four remaining HPO concerts, January 18, February 15, April 26 and May 31.  They must have proof of purchase, obviously, and the tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis as tickets are available.

To claim tickets, Opera Hamilton patrons can call the HPO box office at 905-526-7756.

It's a nice gesture on the part of the HPO, and if they eventually gather in some of those Opera Hamilton patrons for their own concerts in the future, all the better.  But I wouldn't want to bet the bank on that.  Money is tight all over these days, especially in the arts, so I suspect many affected patrons might just keep their money in their pockets for awhile.

Opera Hamilton is not the only operatic casualty these days.  Back in late September, New York City opera announced it would close down after 70 years of providing affordable opera for the masses.  The writing was on the wall quite some time ago for New York City Opera, as they moved out of their long-time home at Lincoln Centre and cut back on their performance schedule in order to cut costs.

But it was not enough, and a Kickstarter campaign the company had launched to try to raise $ 1 million of the $ 7 million it sought fell far short of its goal.  At the end, they had only raised barely over $ 300,000 of that amount.

What a sad end to a company that always prided itself on being, as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia put it at the time, a company that provided "cultural entertainment at popular prices."  Sound familiar?

And it is not a problem just here in North America.  In Italy, considered the cradle of opera thanks to the rich operatic history provided over the years by the likes of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Bellini and a host of other Italian opera composers, the tradition of opera is starting to die off as well.

Recently the staff at Catania's opera house staged a funeral in suitably operatic fashion, carrying a coffin through the packed auditorium.  But this was a funeral for the opera house itself.  That opera house is in deep financial trouble, as is the case in Florence, Rome, Bologna, Genoa, Parma and Cagliari.

The problem in Italy is lack of government funding due to the economic crisis they have been facing the last several years.  But wait.  When we are talking government funding, the model they use compared to North America is as different as night and day.  In North America, generally speaking government funding accounts for about 2 to 3 per cent of a company's total operating budget.  In Italy, the funding is more likely a 50/50 split.  That's a considerable difference, and one that I am sure many North American companies wouldn't mind dealing with themselves.

There are success stories in Italy, as is the case elsewhere, of course, but in Italy according to some sources, the problem is not really money, but incompetent management.  As one writer recently put it, "Italy has kept appointing idiots" as managers, losing money as they go.

Whatever the root cause of the problems in Europe as well as in North America, opera companies of every size will have to come to grips with the new reality that younger audiences are generally not coming to the opera.  It is expensive to produce and patrons willing to shell out considerable sums of money to be seen at the opera are dwindling.

Arts in general have to deal with this as well.  As audiences get older, you have to find ways of getting the younger crowd interested in your product in order to survive.  But in a world where You Tube and other instant gratification is available in the comfort of your own home, there is less and less incentive to spend your money to be entertained elsewhere.  Just look at the music industry struggling to survive in the face of digital downloading.

People are moving away from being willing to pay to be entertained, although the popularity of Pay TV and even satellite radio might seem to contradict that statement; they are also unwilling to invest the amount of time involved in fully appreciating such an art form as the opera, unfortunately.

The future is clouded in uncertainty for many arts organizations these days, but clever marketing and inventive, indeed daring programming could go a long way to help solve the problem and sell the product to a younger generation.

In the meantime, I will now resume my January exile...

January 12th, 2014.