David Lister: The Week in Arts

The cause célèbre in the arts this year has been the English National Opera's production of the musical Kismet. As I mentioned last week, it was not the neatest timing to stage a musical comedy set in Baghdad, a city described in the piece as "the home of joy, merriment and pleasure".

Did no one at the early production meetings suggest sotto voce that, with British soldiers being killed in Iraq, it might be prudent to look elsewhere for a jaunty summer hit. This week the ENO management defended itself, saying that the box office advance had been good, and that Kismet was part of their overall policy of attracting new audiences.

Somehow I doubt that there's a new, young audience out there desperate to see what the 1955 movie looks like on stage. This was a crass decision from a company which seems to seek out crisis even on the odd occasion when it is entering a period of stability.

But, the staging of Kismet itself is not the most startling thing to emerge from this ENO season. I was struck by a statistic I saw this week. It emerged that in the current ENO season, from April to July, there have been a total of 58 performances, of which 40 have been of musicals and only 18 of opera.

Well, that's one way of attracting new audiences. But isn't the idea meant to be to attract new audiences to opera? And isn't the point of the taxpayer subsidising the English National Opera with a multi-million pound grant that it should be English, National and, not to put too fine a point on it, Opera?

I don't know if members of the ENO management have taken a short stroll from their home at the London Coliseum. But if they do, they will find that the West End of London isn't exactly short of musicals. Indeed, there have been numerous articles in the national press on the subject of London having rather too many musicals.

London is, though, running quite low on opera. To turn the ENO into a home for musicals for the majority of its season is perverse. Of course, the very occasional musical - provided it is very occasional -can be an interesting diversion. One can see what difference truly operatic voices make to such a piece.

But 40 performances of musicals and only 18 of operas by a subsidised national opera house make a mockery of any sort of commitment to the art form of opera. It also makes a mockery of subsidy itself. This cash is going to ENO to stage operas. The opera repertoire is vast, and only a tiny fraction of it is staged in the UK each year. If the English National Opera receives taxpayers' money, given in good faith to it as an opera company, and then uses it for a different purpose, the whole system of subsidy comes under question. It is certainly not illegal. But it is bordering on the unethical.

We have a new Culture Secretary, and I would suggest that one of the first and most useful things he could do is publish a national arts strategy. In this national strategy, he should make quite clear the principles of subsidy, and what in the broadest terms that subsidy should be used for. I hope that he might conclude that subsidy to opera companies should be used for opera.

It wouldn't be the most radical conclusion. But at the London Coliseum, home of the English National Opera, it might well come as a thunderbolt.

Experts - who needs 'em?

I watched coverage of the Live Earth concert on the BBC last weekend. When I turned on, Jonathan Ross, who was hosting, was discussing with a guest I did not recognise, the upcoming set from a reformed Genesis. The discussion centred on how wonderful it was going to be to see Peter Gabriel up on stage.

Pretty much anyone who has the remotest interest in these things, knows that Peter Gabriel, pictured, once indeed the lead singer with Genesis, did not join the reformed group and was certainly not on stage at Wembley . Do BBC producers not do any homework? As the afternoon and evening progressed, numerous presenters - few of them music specialists - flitted in and out. The ubiquitous Graham Norton was one who was inevitably called upon to make a few jokes here and there. But when it came to discussing the bands, all we got was "fantastic" and "amazing" and "it's gonna be great."

The world is not short of music experts and music critics. Let's have a few next time.

* It's well known that you shouldn't act with children as they tend to steal the show. But at Garsington opera this summer, a new rule has been written. Never sing with sheep. One of the productions at the Oxfordshire festival in a glorious country house setting is Mozart's Il Re Di Pastore.

Two sheep were given bit parts in this pastoral opera, and were meant to make separate entrances with their minders. But in rehearsals they baaed so loudly at being separated that the production was slightly altered so that they could enter and exit stage left together.

This may have satisfied their romantic inclinations, but it clearly did not satisfy their hunger. In the interval of one recent performance, the two sheep escaped the green room, found their way out on to the grass where operagoers were picnicking, and gorged themselves on a bewildered couple's hamper.

More from David Lister