National Travel Opera possibly first victim of culture cuts

The rapid austerity operation of at least 200 million on the cultural sector has yet to be fleshed out, but one thing is already clear. If it were up to state secretary Halbe Zijlstra, the National Reisopera, which operates from Enschede, would stand a good chance of being killed in that operation. His request for advice to the Council for Culture, sent the week before Christmas, states the following:

"I request indicate whether at the opera efficiency can be booked, by allowing visitors to travel more, or by assuming a form of organisation where one fixed pitch is chosen, combined with a travel offer."

This wording means that the two opera companies outside the Randstad, namely opera Zuid and the Nationale Reisopera, will not be retained in their current expensive form. This will provoke debate among the governing parties, as the CDA has said it will strictly adhere to the requirements of regional distribution of all supply.

Internationalisation

The letter to the Culture Council further clarifies that the income requirement for subsidised institutions will be raised to 17.5 per cent, and that for those few institutions that will still fall under the basic infrastructure, international appeal will play a vital role in the assessment. That could just mean that institutions that now have little local appeal, such as The Rotterdam Theatre's International Choice, Utrecht's Basis voor Actuele Kunst and dance festival Springdance, stand a great chance of meeting those criteria, while Scapino and Groninger Museum could fall by the wayside. Although this is all more heavily coffee-guessing than is the case with the opera system, the fact remains that with the relatively low extra income requirement, the cutback will mainly lead to the elimination of institutions and companies, especially now that the State Secretary also demands that youth theatre must be included in the basic infrastructure. That is n o t in the cards. There is also a chance that instead of two dance companies, only one will remain, and that there will be room for a theatre company, which will most likely be the internationally highly regarded Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

International success will also become a much more important criterion in cinema. That means primordially Dutch themes will struggle.

Research & Development

Where will the blows fall? Apart from opera and orchestras, two of which will certainly also disappear, this will happen at local level with production houses and training courses. The 'Utrecht Model', once praised by State Secretary Rick van der Ploeg, of groups cooperating separately, will be definitively laid to rest now that the State Secretary calls for more clustering: if there is any company left at all for a city like Utrecht, it will have to take over the development role of institutions like Huis en Festival a/df Werf and Theater Kikker, in addition to being the regular player of the Schouwburg. The same will apply to a city like Arnhem, and the Brabant situation will also have to meet the new clustering requirements.

By spring, the Culture Council should have its opinion ready. Earlier, it indicated little appetite in this task.

The entire letter can be downloaded here: opinion-request-culture-policy