The research project focuses on the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden). Such topic is widely relevant due to Royal Opera House’s significant impact on the culture of the United Kingdom and its international recognition. Moreover, personal reasons for the decision of this research are associated with deep passion for the analysis of the European opera history and desire to be involved in this venue’s activities. As the theme is vast, having many various aspects suitable for a research, the research question, who is the fan of the Royal Opera House, defines more specific area which is changing rapidly regarding economic, political and social causes. Although the Royal Opera House has been already deeply analysed throughout hundreds of years, the overall features of the audience, its response to the repertoire and venue’s social target is not analysed completely. Therefore, using primary source, survey, and secondary sources such as books, articles, reviews, web articles this research reveals the most common features of Covent Garden’s audience.
From the opening of Covent Garden built by Edward Shepherd in 1732 until, approximately, the end of the Second World War, this venue was the focal point of its mixed class audience. The suspended concessions and increased prices caused violent riots and demonstrations which expressed the high demand for Covent Garden’s production and accessibility (Gishford, 1972). Moreover, private fundraising was vital and constant, for instance, even several seasons occurred due to private funders such as Giuseppe Persiani in 1847 and Signor Lago in 1886 (Gishford, 1972) who encouraged the sponsorship in order to maintain the internationally great opera house. Furthermore, as British audience was strongly conservative, some librettos, including G. Meyerbeer’s ‘Les Huguenots’ and D. Auber’s ‘Gustave III’, had to be altered for the United Kingdom (Dent, 1949; Tooley, 1999). Although the Covent Garden was presented as an elite way of entertainment, supported by private donations, Gishford (1972) claimed that the audience consisted of the elegant and snobbish upper class and impecunious and rumbustious lower classes which created a contrasting sense of the period. Reasons why estates were keen on Covent Garden were associated with their attitude regarding the social image which was improved by following trends, dictated by the Royal Family, and, if affordable, having an access to the boxes (Hibberd, 2003; Gishford, 1972). This mixture of large regular audience caused that a part of it was lacking the knowledge of etiquette while another part was focused on its social status but both of them were united by deep roots of conservatism.
Together with the start of a public support in 1946, the Government and the Royal Opera House were hoping to broaden the audience and develop its musicological knowledge (Gilbert, 2003; Lebrecht 2000). Huge debates were occurring regarding the performances in English, stating that production in original language is only for snobs and the venue has to be widely accessible (Gilbert, 2003). As a consequence, middle classes filled the gap in the audience but due to the lack of experience regarding repertoire, Covent Garden public, differently than in Germany or Italy, did not respond positively to the innovative operas and modern surrealism design and preferred internationally recognised R. Wagner, G. Puccini, G. Verdi and G. Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ (Gilbert, 2003; Tooley, 1999). However, the audience was unpredictable and after several years its patriotism alongside traditional repertoire taste decreased, having a demand for international stars singing in original language and eccentric operas such as A. Shoenberg’s ‘Moses and Aaron’ which caused the sold-out qualitative performances and better education of the audience. However, financial difficulties required another attempts to bring mixed audiences. The strategy included activities such as school workshops, development of Education Department, proms, relays, performances at the Wembley arena, ‘Travelex’ sponsored transportation, season’s opening for ‘The Sun’ readers and opera and ballet screening at 22 countries’ cinemas (Brown, 2011; BBC, 2011, 2008; Gilbert, 2003; Tait, 2004). Although economic issues disabled vast improvements, the audience’s content and preferable repertoire was expanded (Kennedy, 2002; Thorpe, 2002).
Very influential feature of the British society and the Government is its antipathy to the funding of cultural activities and sceptical attitude regarding Covent Garden (Gove, 2002; Gilbert, 2003; Gishford, 1972). Large disagreements were noticed not only regarding the amount of public support but also the need for broadening the Covent Garden’s audience. Royal Opera House was focused on wide accessibility (Lebrecht, 2000; Tooley, 1999) but, conversely, Hugues Galls claimed that people are into elitist opera and the attendees should remain special by venue’s low accessibility (Clark, 1993), which considerably harmed the Covent Garden’s image (Gilbert, 2003). Moreover, the Government’s and public’s doubts of the necessity of Covent Garden were criticised by Peter Hall, Colin Davis and Bryn Appleyard who stated that Britain is full of philistinism, glamorous events and star singers and it destroys what it creates (Gilbert, 2003). Furthermore, there were surveyed 31 students aged between 18 and 29 years old of which 92.6% is not attending Covent Garden. The majority would be tempted to come if ticket prices were reduced and mostly architecture is a point of interest. However, 2011/2012 season’s prices varies from £9-£205 of which 50% is under £55 (BBC, 2011) so the accessibility should be quite high. Therefore, society’s demands and pride of Covent Garden are still uncertain.
The audience’s issues are also linked with this creative industries organisation’s economic, political and social background. Despite the complex funding and establishment of the governing body Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Ltd, financial difficulties were occurring constantly and caused an increase in prices, reduced accessibility and quality (Fay, 1997; Tooley, 1999). Although the Covent Garden is defined to be a source of VAT payment and a tool of tourism growth, arts are still a low priority for the Government (Gishford, 1972; Hibberd, 2003). However, this venue is well recognised internationally due to involvement of great musicians such as M. Callas, H. Berlioz, C. M. Weber and B. Britten. Creative industries which are providing product or service with an artistic endeavour (Caves, 2001) are widely related to Covent Garden because it not only produces opera and ballet performances but also boasts of architectural heritage and develops activities such as radio, television and internet broadcasts (M2 Presswire, 1999, 2009) and launch of a video game ‘The Show Must Go On’ (Brown, 2011). Although the Royal Opera House is the internationally important cultural venue, having a small regular audience, its maintenance requires too much than the Government determines and it is unclear whether such venue’s demand is large enough.
The research process revealed that the Covent Garden is a complex organisation and there are many related aspects to be analysed. One of the weaknesses is that the vast topic makes difficulties regarding the selection of certain information and it requires thorough collection of opinions before it is possible to group them in parts and make generalisations. Moreover, the presented small scale survey cannot reflect the general trends and reveals only a part of society’s view, therefore, only by having better research abilities it is possible to achieve large survey numbers and then generalise the information (Denscombe, 2007). There was also the lack of statistics and information of the current decade as only some articles are available. Therefore, an interview with representative of Covent Garden was necessary but yet no response from the venue was given. Furthermore, the word limit did not allow the full coverage of research findings and smaller topic might be more suitable for such scale. However, large variety of historical Covent Garden’s history sources and reviews enabled to have considerably accurate and reliable research propositions. Further steps have to be taken in order to compare the Covent Garden audience’s attitude with other countries’ such as Italy, Austria, United States and France and also with local English National Opera. Moreover, there should be defined all reasons of opera and ballet popularity’s decrease since the end of the Second World War and deeper analysis of sceptical public attitude regarding arts. Therefore, this aspect of Royal Opera House would be better researched if stated data was linked with an interview about the current venue’s strategy, large scale survey, comparisons with local and international opera venues and further findings of British society behaviour.
To conclude, the Royal Opera House’s audience transformed, from being deeply focused to quite ignorant or unable to access. Moreover, it usually consists of wealthy members of upper and middle classes which need to be broadened. Covent Garden always had financial and political issues which suspended considerable improvements in accessibility and national image but its constant developments caused variety of cultural activities alongside performances. This research enabled to analyse the audience through collection of reliable data. However, as research is a never ending process, qualitative primary sources and further research should be done in order to get a full picture.
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