Why should I subsidize opera?

Perhaps I should first make clear that I like opera and have attended many live performances over the years. But in pondering the question, why confine ourselves to opera? How about symphony orchestras, string quartets (hate those), classical theatre, and any other art form which can’t survive without subsidy.

We could argue that the arts have always been subsidized in some way; the Catholic church and its prelates have always been big buyers of art. Michelangelo lived on church money.

On the other hand many if not most artists have lived on the proceeds of their paintings and some have become wealthy. Rembrandt, the wonder of the age, was wealthy until he went out of fashion and became bankrupt. No one subsidized him and he produced some of his most moving self portraits when he was old and poor.

Most of our entertainment from sport to art to literature gets no public money but it can be said that without subsidy much art would be lost; The Phantom of the Opera, rock groups, Willie Nelson, would be fine but  Rigoletto and Hamlet would wither and perhaps die.

I can understand the thinking behind the calls for no subsidies for theatre and so on But have happily enjoyed the fruits of that subsidy when I have visited the Stratford Festival in Ontario or been overwhelmed by Götterdämmerung at Covent Garden.

But the question always in my mind is: Why should the millions subsidize the relative few who patronize what we patronizingly call the fine arts?

Posted by This style 10/6

David Hockney. Scene for The Rake's Progress by  Igor Stravinsky.

David Hockney is not subsidized as hit art has made him rich.