The future of opera in Ireland is still up for grabs, with doubt raised about the Arts Council’s controversial plan to site a new national company in Wexford

FOR AS LONG as I can remember, opera has been a problem to the Arts Council, and the Arts Council has been a problem to opera. The tricky relationship continues. This week Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen outlined a view on the future of opera in Ireland which differs significantly from the course that the Arts Council has most recently been pursuing.

The council is looking to create a single national company based in Wexford. The Minister is interested in a national company, but would have it based in Dublin.

This latest twist in the long and sorry saga of the council’s niggardly treatment of the art form stems from its July decision to withdraw funding from three existing companies – Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company and Wexford Festival Opera – and, from 2011, to fund just a single company, which would be set up to continue provision of the existing services but would be based in the new Wexford Opera House.

That startling decision, which the council justified on the basis of cost-savings and the improved “scaleability” which it claims the new company would have, may already be in limbo. The rationale for the decision was expressed in what’s now being called the Shannon Plan, named after the council’s specialist opera adviser, Randall Shannon, who wrote it.

The three companies have cast aspersions on various aspects of the Shannon Plan, which, it has to be said, makes a one-sided presentation of its case, and will have been easy for opponents to pick holes in. Try this for size, about the location of the new company: “While in theory this new entity could be based in Dublin, arguments for locating it in Wexford Opera House appear to be more compelling. For the purposes of this exercise, it is assumed that the new entity is based in Wexford Opera House.” In the world of the Shannon Plan, things are really as simple as that.

Cullen, a self-confessed opera lover, may not have been best pleased with the Arts Council’s radical July decision. He has sought – and received – proposals from the three companies on the future of opera in Ireland, and he plans to have meetings with the companies over the coming weeks.

And, indeed, the council itself may be wavering. It had planned to finalise its decision on opera grants for 2010 in September. But the coherence of the companies’ objections has forced the council to take fresh stock of the situation. There are those in the opera world who are now regarding the July decision as being either “parked” or partially shelved, and the chairpersons of the three companies have been invited into a process to find a new way forward. Whether this is a bona-fide attempt to have a fresh look at the issues raised in the Shannon Plan, a potential whitewash, or a move to divide and conquer (splitting the chairs, who don’t depend on the opera companies for their livelihood, from the chief executives, who do) remains to be seen.

The new twist presented by Cullen will give all sides a lot to think about. He used an interview on Vincent Woods's Arts Tonightprogramme on RTÉ Radio 1 to outline his own views. "I want to form a national opera company," he said. "I'm absolutely clear on that."

I think Ireland as a country and its capital city needs, in my view, a national opera company. That is something I’m determined to achieve,” he told Woods. “I’m very upbeat about it. I think it can be done. One of the difficulties is that, apart from Wexford, which is a wonderful, wonderful opera house, we don’t have a dedicated opera house in Dublin, and that’s an issue obviously that can’t be resolved today. But I think the first thing to do is to set up a national opera company.

“I’m not so sure that amalgamating all three is the answer. I think Wexford has a very distinct image, a very distinct brand, and a very distinct, I suppose, access to the market internationally, where it has branded itself in a very different way to what a national opera company would be. So I’d be more inclined to look at leaving Wexford with its own mandate, and carry on in that regard, and have a national opera company out of maybe the other two which exist in Dublin.”

Remember this moment. You’re witnessing a Government minister showing a sounder grasp of the fundamentals of opera in Ireland than the Arts Council and its specialist adviser.

“I’m not so sure that amalgamating all three is the answer. Wexford has a very distinct image, a very distinct brand, and a very distinct access to the market internationally, where it has branded itself in a very different way to a national company