Rising from the rubble, the Royal Opera House is on budget, on time, and will reopen on 1st December. Michael Kaiser, its new director, says so, and he sounds sure. He is promising a rejuvenated theatre, with a reduced staff (releasing money for performances), a simpler structure (one board, not three) and an expanded building with two smaller performance spaces and luxurious studios for the Royal Ballet. A new music director, Antonio Pappano, replaces Bernard Haitink, and the search is on for a successor to the ballet's director, Anthony Dowell, who retires in 2001. Dowell has faced tough times, but he is not entirely blameless for the company's decline.
Sitting in his poky Floral Street office alongside the scaffolding, Kaiser tells me that he trained as an opera singer himself. But he found fame prescribing the right medicine for arts companies in the US. He flatly asserts that the ROH will succeed in raising the ?17m still missing from the ?100m sponsorship needed for the redevelopment. Being American, he sees challenges, not problems. Being American, he also views private sponsorship not as faute de mieux charity, but as an opportunity to safeguard an organisation's survival. "It's less scary than relying on one big funder, the government, who can cut support," he says. He adds that he is comfortable with the present level of Arts Council subsidy, increased by ?4m to ?20m for the next financial year.
Although not opposed to the principle of government subsidy, he argues that dance has fared better under the US's largely privatised regime. I mention that across the Channel the arts are doing very well, thanks to old-fashioned state funding. "Things will need to change because the cost of producing great art will continue going up and government money will not go up at the same rate," he says. "It's already happening here."
So, dear Prospect reader, the ROH will now use extra vigour in pursuing you for donations. You don't have to be super-rich. Kaiser is aiming at people with ?100 to spare in return for small privileges: invitations to rehearsals; whatever. How will he persuade you to part with this, given that, unlike in the US, British taxation does not deduct tax against gifts? Actually, he says, that is not quite correct. "The US tax mechanism is different, but the end result is the same. In the US, if you give $100, you get $30 back on your taxes. Here you have something called Gift Aid, meaning that if you give ?70, the government tops it up to ?100 to your chosen beneficiary." So how will he encourage the British to give more? "The heart of fund-raising for American Ballet Theatre is gifts between $1,000 and $5,000 a year. It doesn't need a billionaire to give that money. It needs someone who says, 'This sounds fun, I want to be part of this organisation and I can afford it.'" He has increased the tiers of sponsorship at ROH, but not diminished benefits given to the basic donors. "For ?55 a year you will get the same benefits. But we have introduced higher levels of giving because many ?55 sponsors could give more, and wanted to, but were never asked."
What does he want the ROH to be? A people's theatre? An enclave for the beau monde? A temple to high art? A laboratory for experiment? Kaiser believes it can be all those things. To those ends he has lowered most ticket prices (substantially for opera) and introduced cheaper prices on Fridays and Saturdays, on the grounds that business clients tend to attend on weekdays. He has also pledged to make at least 20 per cent of tickets available through the box office; before, priority postal booking for the 16,000 Friends of Covent Garden (who pay that ?55 a year) meant few seats for popular performances. Is there a conflict between accessibility and satisfying the benefactors? "On average, even before the closure, 60 per cent of seats were sold through the box office. The 20 per cent is just for the eight or ten very popular performances."
He is confident that he can overcome the ROH's image as a toff's club. "You will find many different people here. They can come in during the day; they can come to performances in the smaller theatres; they will find free events and events at all prices." The 450-seat studio theatre will allow experimentation away from the intimidating opera house glare, and should attract new audiences which might be tempted into the main theatre. "But I won't segregate new art in the studio," he adds. "We have three new opera commissions for the big stage as well."
He admits that touring to provide national access is problematic, especially for the opera. The plan to increase television broadcasts, he accepts, is not a satisfactory substitute for live performance. But his positive outlook is infectious. He also has the new, more versatile, building on his side-which is perhaps why he took the job. He is the right man at the right time.
