Artist Managers: Analysis paralysis

With the odd exception, the publication of the Arts Council England-commissioned Let’s Create: Opera and Music Theatre Analysis has been met with an avalanche of scorn in the media. The report, put together by the independent research consultancy DHA (in partnership with The Audience Agency) was meeting the brief to ‘gather up-to-date information on professional opera and music theatre across the country’. The Analysis is intended to inform the ways in which ACE delivers its ambitions for this sector over the next decade, under that ‘Let’s Create’ ensign, but how exactly ‘creativity’ will be defined is clearly a key question.

The Analysis is a dense read. Try it. You wonder how many critics managed to get their heads round the detail before penning their excoriations as deadlines loomed. Certainly, the most commonly expressed horror was exhaled at the idea that the Analysis provides ammunition for something akin to a war on staple operatic repertoire (in ACE funding terms) in favour of new fare of, shall we say, direct contemporary relevance. As it happens, artist managers share this concern.

Much was made by ACE of the fact that research for the report involved wide consultation across the country with those at the rock-face. Yet no approach to the International Artist Managers’ Association was made (I can confirm), notwithstanding the fact that its membership embraces a wealth of experience of the opera scene, observed from a multiplicity of angles over extended periods of time. An approach to ACE over whether artist managers will be among those sought out during the broad-based consultation period that now ensues, garnering reaction to the Analysis, met with an inconclusive answer. We shall see.

Speaking of that ‘wealth of experience’, few IAMA members are better placed to comment here than singers manager Helen Sykes. She can look back across more than 40 years of engagement with opera, starting in an administrative role with English National Opera in the 1980s. Sykes has given long service both to the IAMA board and the organisation’s opera committee, in the course of which, she says, ‘I have no recollection of artist managers ever being consulted in situations like this. We seem not to be recognised as having a significant voice… yet when you consider that managers have often been in the profession for decades, it surely should be reckoned that we have a valuable, informed perspective to offer. We’re a significant part of the opera ecology.’

Atholl Swainston-Harrison: 'I’ve spoken to a number of people in the sector and the view is that the implications of the Opera and Music Theatre Analysis seriously undermine the Arts Council’s historic supportive function.'

IAMA chief executive Atholl Swainston-Harrison (pictured above) is clearly all the more disappointed at this lack of consultation given that the pandemic sparked a much closer rapport than previously existed between ACE and the artist management profession. ‘The availability of Arts Council money to support certain artist managements through the crisis was a recognition of the importance of our sector to the classical music ecosystem, at a time when it was so sorely threatened. This seemed to bear out the founding principle of the Arts Council, namely that it existed to advocate for the arts sector in a way that is arms-length and responsible for enabling those who deliver on stage – which by extension involves those who represent them.’

Helen Sykes takes the view that making known the views of artist managers over this issue is simply an extension of the job of a singers representative. The Analysis, she reckons, seems to present direct challenges to performers themselves, given the sense of an intention that core operatic repertoire may not be a funding priority. ‘When the industry itself is plagued by uncertainty as a consequence of a report of this nature, then the individual artist is bound to share that worry. Yes, I think the danger is that many artists will feel betrayed if the worst happens here. They’ve trained at a very high level for years, developing techniques and musicianship to enable them to sing opera from across the centuries.’

Sykes wryly observes additionally that any possible ‘war’ on heartland opera repertoire – which attracts sizeable audiences – risks alienating taxpayers who ‘might feel they have a right to see there’s considerable public support for this art form.’

In Swainston-Harrison’s view, an obligation might be on IAMA to speak up for the opera industry at large. ‘The artist management sector can probably comment with more independence than those who receive “life-blood” public money. I’ve spoken to a number of people in the sector and the view is that the implications of the Opera and Music Theatre Analysis seriously undermine the Arts Council’s historic supportive function. However, those who are unhappy have reported being fearful about sticking their heads above the parapet. You won’t believe the stories I’m hearing… including from very high profile and established organisations. There’s talk of there being “tyranny” afoot. To them, this report must feel like a whipping-stick in artistic and repertoire terms.’

UK opera companies, says Swainston-Harrison, ‘do their best under extraordinary circumstances. If one compares them to their counterparts in Europe, I’d say they work miracles. Leave them alone to get on with their work – which begins with the goal of those words “artistic excellence”. And yet ACE’s founding duty to promote financial access so that the valued opera tradition thrives as part of our artistic heritage, seems to be under serious threat.’

Helen Sykes emphatically agrees. ‘Opera as far back as Monteverdi is able to inform human experience, telling significant and relevant stories about who we are even today. So this core repertoire must remain at the heart of things. An opera about Steve Jobs is all very well, but there has to be more to the future than mere novelty.’

Meanwhile, a report arrives of the first event this year marking IAMA’s seventieth anniversary. A Dutch music industry seminar (pictured above) at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw marked the historical nicety that artist managers from the Netherlands showed particular enthusiasm for joining IAMA when it emerged, blinking, from the British Association of Concert Agents chrysalis in 1996.

So… champagne, balloons, bunting at the Concertgebouw? Well, I won’t bother answering my own question. Under the curatorship of Hilversum-based manager Hannes De Vries, an IAMA-typical agenda featuring practical matters of shared concern held the attention. Performers’ tax niggles, the challenge of how to snare young audiences, navigating the thickets of visa application procedures… such things can set hearts racing at these affairs. It was intriguing, though, to view a Key Brexit Dividend (sic) through the other end of the telescope, as those present lapped up the latest tips on getting ‘non-visa’ musicians into the UK.

Those assembled perhaps needed some bubbly after all that.