Wexford festival opera 2010: a study of national and cultural values in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland

Abstract

This thesis interrogates notions of cultural value and their complex relations with the state and notions of national identity. It does so in the context of the unique circumstances of opera in Ireland, specifically through a case study of the Wexford Festival Opera. It questions what the official criteria of value in the arts (variously, ‘accessibility’, ‘economic impact’, consonance with ‘national identity’) really mean in Ireland in the current straitened economic circumstances. The approach is broad, bringing the relevant current conversations within the fields of arts philosophy and cultural policy together with media commentary on them, and examining the whole through the lens of historical perspective. Most important, it includes the voice of the tax---payer – so often invoked but so rarely heard – in the shape of survey responses gathered at the 2010 festival (i.e. at the worst point of the financial crisis, a month beforethe EU/IMF bail---out)

‘Cultural value’ is a subject that has received much academic attention in the past thirty years by both cultural economists and philosophers. However, it has become a particularly prominent issue in the recent global recession as state---supported services are re---evaluated to allow for tough budget cuts whilst the media continually questions whether the tax---payer is getting ‘value for money’ from the organisations receiving state support. This unique case study – of a successful international opera festival seemingly out of place in a country that lacks a strong historical heritage in the art form – offers fresh insights that will surely inform thinking about cultural value in other contexts and on a variety of levels.

The research published here suggests that although cultural policy objectives can be achieved as the public ‘access’, ‘engage’ and ‘participate’ in art---forms such as opera, sometimes the official terminology is not an adequate expression of how such arts are valued by the community, and that value is often situated in a more tenuous type of ‘ownership’ of the arts. In addition, and more controversially, this study reveals that in the case of Wexford Festival Opera, the official aims of Arts Council Ireland policy often do not reflect the reality of its funding decisions.

Date of Award	Mar 2014
Original language	English
Sponsors	Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland
Supervisor	Cormac Newark (Supervisor)