Bryn Terfel starts petition to reinstate ENO funding

Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel Jones CBE has started a petition asking secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, Michelle Donelan, to ‘reinstate the English National Opera's ACE funding immediately’. The petition follows Arts Council England’s (ACE) announcement last Friday (4 November) that the company would no longer be a National Portfolio Organisation.

The petition, written by Sir Bryn, called on the Government to ‘radically rethink removing the English National Opera (ENO) as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.’ The petition has already been signed by 4,636 people including industry voices such as tenor Nicky Spence.

In a statement released on Twitter today, the ENO called on opera fans to sign the petition, saying: ‘We want to work with DCMS and ACE to aid the levelling up agenda but it has become clear to us that their proposal needs urgent revision so we can continue to be a world-class opera company in London and perform more regularly in all parts of the country, including Manchester. Please help us to get them to reconsider their current decision by signing this petition, kindly set up by Sir Bryn Terfel.’

This statement is at odds with the company’s previous statement, released on Friday, which called the development ‘a new chapter for ENO’, but is more in line with the sentiment expressed by the ENO’s outgoing CEO, Stuart Murphy, on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row yesterday.

Although the ENO would receive £17 million of investment from 2023-26 under the ACE’s current funding offer, the company would need to move to a new base out of London in order to receive the funding. In his petition Sir Bryn cites the danger these cuts present to the careers of ‘singers, musicians, technical staff, creatives and other skilled workers, both permanent and freelance’ as well as to ‘audiences in London and nationwide’ who ‘will be without opera.’

You can find out more about the petition here.

​