A statement from Opera Zuid dated 4th November 2024
Opera Zuid is in danger of disappearing due to a serious lack of subsidy. Our company has taken note with dismay of the minister’s decision letter for the coming period 2025-2028. In this decision, the minister ignores the call from the Council for Culture to “actively support Opera Zuid with additional financing options, so that a realistic solution can be found for the institution”. The subsidy amount requested by Opera Zuid was €3,500,000, while €1,888,300 will be awarded.
The Council also writes that “Opera Zuid structurally needs more elbow room to fulfil its basic function as a fully-fledged opera company, which also functions as the only opera facility in the South region”. While the Council describes the company as “indispensable ” and “exemplary ”, the decision of OC&W means an inescapable death sentence for Opera Zuid.
The minister’s decision imposes obligations on our company that are impossible to implement within the allocated resources. Because further cutbacks are no longer possible or permitted. The Council for Culture writes that Opera Zuid’s activity programme “forms the minimum basis for a fully-fledged opera company in the bis, especially because Opera Zuid also has a task according to the regulation with regard to the regional distribution of opera […] ” with even fewer productions and shorter tours, the institution cannot continue to provide for its basic function”.
The Minister does not respond to the above, and the consequences of this are disastrous and irreparable: the vulnerable and invaluable connection that Opera Zuid has been able to establish between opera and social areas such as care, prevention and welfare, self-reliance, education and inclusion, are destroyed. Exemplary projects such as our Buurt Opera (which was literally put in the spotlight by the Berenschot report, commissioned by the House of Representatives) are irrevocably lost. The value of our company is not only about opera but also about its impact on people and society.
This decision also undermines our entrepreneurship: not only is our revenue model (public receipts, sponsors and donors) disrupted, but so are the carefully built relationships with co-producers and partners, regionally, nationally and internationally. The decision of the minister also puts Opera Zuid in further danger because without the necessary additional resources we cannot meet the obligations and agreements with our regional and local governments
Without intervention from the House of Representatives during the cultural debate on 11th November, Opera Zuid will cease to exist.
