Letter: No cut-rate Glyndebourne

Sir: Where did Antony Peattie (2 October) get the idea that the Arts Council wants to bring cut-down versions of Glyndebourne Touring Opera's repertory, with reduced orchestras, cheap stagings and juvenile casts, to regional theatres? The whole thrust of our policy is to offer high-quality opera to new audiences in new theatres and to ensure that the work offered does not in any way compromise standards.

We would particularly like Glyndebourne Touring Opera to take up this challenge because so much of its traditional repertoire is suitable for middle-scale theatres. Stravinsky's The Rake's Progess (last year's Glyndebourne tour) and Britten's Death in Venice (GTO 1989) were written with smaller theatres in mind. Ironically enough, Cornet Christoph Rilke's Song of Love and Death, the subject of Mr Peattie's article, would be very suitable for many of the theatres we are targeting.

Yours faithfully,

ANDREW KYLE

Director of Touring

The Arts Council

London, SW1