‘Useful’ can seem a loaded word when it is applied to the arts. Benjamin Britten, in the utilitarian years after the Second World War, felt that music should be of use to ‘ordinary people’, establishing an ethos that has permeated the work of opera companies around Britain ever since. ‘Usefulness’ led to ‘outreach’, ‘accessibility’, and now ‘engagement’. At its worst, this has created a culture of boxticking, with nebulous and sometimes patronising projects devised primarily to satisfy funding bodies. At its best, however, the urge to be useful has resulted in an extraordinary flowering of work aimed at schools, young people and communities on the fringes of society whose lives are enriched by an encounter with the world of creativity and self-expression.
In this issue, we highlight the work of Tim Yealland, head of education at English Touring Opera, whose collaboration with composer Russell Hepplewhite is a model of good practice in the field of audience development. Yealland works across age ranges and in challenging areas such as mental health to produce pieces that are absorbing and entertaining, as well as stretching the imagination of their audience (see page 35). Yealland and Hepplewhite are among the many unsung heroes and heroines of opera, whose working lives exemplify a quiet passion for the art without craving the spotlight.
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