T he fate of English National Opera’s chorus has stirred angry debate in the last week. Of course I feel concern for individuals in a company, but opera itself faces problems greater than ENO’s if it fails to make itself relevant to 21st century audiences. Arts Council England must keep its eye on the big picture.

Opera receives just under a fifth of the Arts Council’s investment in our national portfolio of organisations. Some say that’s too generous, especially when it delivers between 3% and 4% of live audiences in theatres. Many opera companies are responding boldly to this challenge. The Royal Opera House is full every night and has led the way in cinema and big screen broadcasts; Birmingham Opera Company is doing wonderful work on a fraction of ENO’s funding to reach new communities; Opera North combines outreach work with an active concert programme by its orchestra. ENO is waking up to the challenge a little late, although we are fully supportive of its new leadership.

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Opera is a wonderful form that can capture your heart and your imagination, sometimes so much it can be overwhelming. It can also be expensive to stage. This is why we fund it generously. We care deeply about the work ENO puts on and its important mission to take that work to a wide audience, yet last year we cut ENO’s grant by £5m, which may seem counterintuitive, given their financial struggles. Let me explain.

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In 2012, we conducted an analysis of opera that showed declining cumulative audience figures for our largest companies. Until this financial year, ENO has struggled to attract audiences and to balance its books. It has been bailed out over the years by the Arts Council to the tune of millions of pounds. Although we are seeing clear signs of improvement, as stewards of public money we cannot ignore its track record. ENO remains in receipt of a substantial £12m per year from the Arts Council. It is our fifth largest investment, more than any other opera company with the exception of Royal Opera House, which also runs a full-time ballet company.

In reducing ENO’s grant, we believed we could get better value for the taxpayer by investing that money elsewhere. We also believe we have made the organisation wake up to the changes required to run a modern, sustainable opera company.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An ENO production of The Magic Flute at the London Coliseum. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Its funding changes have not come out of the blue. We informed them of our intentions as far back as 2013. The previous management failed to present us with a convincing new approach, but the new leadership appears to have got to grips with the challenge. It is coming up with credible ideas that aren’t simply the old year-round, grand opera house model playing to dwindling audiences.

There are no rules about having to have two opera houses in a major world city, but it remains our devout wish for London. What we want to avoid is the crisis in New York, where the New York City Opera was forced to close in 2013. We want ENO to find a way to do exciting work and engage new audiences for opera but free itself from some of its enormous fixed costs and liabilities. That way, we will have two different world-class opera companies in London in 20 years’ time.

So can this be done? It will involve ENO examining its structures from head to toe and imagining what it might look like in a city as rich in musical and other resources as London. There are different successful models of producing opera which provide plenty of inspiration.

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Those ideas must be owned by ENO. It is not our job as funder to tell them what to do. We acknowledge and regret that change may be painful for individuals within the company. Recognising there is a real cost in terms of people’s livelihoods, we have given ENO three full years of transition funding totalling £7.6m on top of their core grant, to help them adapt.

At the Arts Council we must keep the whole nation’s arts ecology in sight. We are concerned with the quality and relevance of all art forms, and we want everyone in England to benefit from our investment, beyond opera audiences in central London. There are places where local authority funding of arts and culture is being cut savagely and where it’s very difficult to fundraise.

Those who know me understand that I have a personal commitment to classical music of all types, but they also know I will squeeze every ounce of value out of taxpayer’s cash. Let’s worry and care for the talented members of the ENO chorus. But amid the media furore, let’s also remember that cultural institutions across England are facing immense challenges, and the best ones are rising to them.