Culture Council marginally updates opinion, but sticks to controversial decisions

The National Opera had made a mistake in preparing its application. According to the Culture Council, the multi-million-dollar national institution had failed to break down performance data between dance and music. As a result, the company had to submit an entirely new application before 1 November. Now it turns out that was not that bad. As it turns out, the data was in the application, but 'the council notes that this was done in an incorrect and untraceable place, but based on the assessment of this document, let one of the four conditions for subsidy lapse.‘

Nice that the National Opera now does not have to submit the additional data until next year, but it is still a lot, namely:

• The institution submits a more detailed elaboration of the artistic course chosen by DNO in the coming period, explaining the artistic programme choices in relation to the chosen profile and the chosen mission and vision of the institution.
• The institution explains how it involves the Netherlands Reisopera and Opera Zuid (the institutions subsidised under Article 3.20) in its talent development activities, including how it shapes its coordinating role in this task.
• The institution submits a new reflection on how the Fair Practice Code and the Diversity and Inclusion Code will be applied in the coming period National Opera & Ballet (De Nationale Opera) and what developments the institution considers urgent in this regard in the coming period.

That's quite a lot. Anyway, they are going to get away with it, because certainly this Council is not going to throw the National Opera out of the Basic Cultural Infrastructure. They just need to say 'sir' nicely to the gentlemen in the Council, and I'm sure it will be fine.

Read well

Remains that phrase: 'in an incorrect and untraceable place', where the Opera had then put those figures on dance and music. Or indeed, the Council has rigged up a whole advisory committee full of people who you might expect to read such an application very carefully. So how is it possible that it contains 'untraceable' things, which are later found anyway?

The question now is: how well did the Council read this application? How well have they read other applications? Questions, questions, because so much is still unclear. Like that ukase the festivals fell victim to. Because at the last minute, already after the assessment, the minister had decided that, of the existing festivals in the BIS, no one should fall over, and that the festivals that had been honoured should therefore cave in to structurally subsidise eight festivals instead of seven, the accountants went to work and took money away from everyone, just from some a bit more.

Dubious

We wrote earlier that Oerol and Holland Festival there the victim of became. Their cut will now be reversed slightly: they will lose no more than 10 per cent of their current subsidy. Still substantial, but within the law. Again, the reason is remarkable. The council writes: 'the council had assumed the wrong base year in its assessment. As a result, the recommended discount was initially too high.' Which baseline year could lead to a twice as high cut does beg the question. That, moreover, the entire festival sector is making a substantial cut compared to now, thanks to the transition to basic infrastructure, is a fact that the Council does not mention further.

It is complicated enough, presumably. To all other objections, the Council does not elaborate further. The highly dubious musical advice, in which conflicts of interest will almost certainly prove demonstrable, remains unsaid, as does the curious move to give Almere €250,000 worth of to give a museum director, without a museum.

We won't go on holiday for now.