Telegraph
Andrew Pierce
Last Updated: 2:15am GMT 26/03/2008


The Royal Opera House has been accused of dumbing down by using Tesco's favourite market research company to try to generate younger audiences.

A performance of the popular opera, Carmen, at the Royal Opera House
A performance of the popular opera, Carmen, at the Royal Opera House

Opera magazine, the bible of the industry, has accused Tony Hall, the venue's chief executive, of "having a mid-life crisis" in his attempt to reach out to a new "cool crowd".

The magazine said the decision to devise a programme of events based on market research by Dunnhumby, a consultancy best known for its demographic analysis of Tesco Clubcard customers, was misguided.

In a thundering editorial, the magazine said: "The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, turns 150 this year. It is ageing well, thanks not least to refurbishment a decade ago. That's more than can be said of some of its policy-makers, currently showing classic signs of mid-life crisis and going to unseemly lengths to get younger flesh on its seats."

The editorial, written by John Allison, the magazine's editor and an opera critic for The Sunday Telegraph, mocked Mr Hall, 62, for stating in his marketing material: "We want to get that buzzy, cool crowd to come in."

"Quite apart from the sad spectacle of a 50-something deciding that 30 is the height of cool, Hall is demonstrating a more fundamental crisis of confidence and a lack of belief in the art forms his institution should be serving" it added.


Tony Hall, the chief executive of the Royal Opera House
Tony Hall, the chief executive
of the Royal Opera House


The magazine said Dunnhumby had reached the conclusion that the opera house appealed to opera and ballet lovers but not to professionals in their 20s and 30s.

"There - the secret you'd never have guessed is out!" gushed the editorial. "In direct response to these supermarket whizzes, the opera house is putting on a three-day festival featuring 'the coolest names in town'."

These "names" include Julian Opie, who illustrated a Blur album cover; Scanner, a conceptual artist and musician who will be putting on a club night at the venue; and the performance group, Blast Theory, who will be organising digital games.

Max Loppert, a former opera critic of the Financial Times, also attacked the marketing strategy, particularly the venue's schedule booklets: "Adorning a picture of Antonio Pappano [the conductor] I read in disbelief: 'ELEMENTAL FORCE. Meet Tony. One Of The Most Electric Men In Opera. Only Silver Conducts Better. But It Can't Give A Performance Of Pure Gold. This cover seems to me a threefold affront: to a serious artistic institution, to those of us who have admired and supported its work … and to the image of the conductor as a serious artist."


The Royal Opera House was unavailable for comment.



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