Vow To Ensure Gov Maintains Opera House

The Assistant Minister with responsibility for the arts says he is committed to making sure the Opera House building is properly maintained by the government into the future.

Serious construction issues have pushed the reopening of the theatre back even further - to June 2023.

Its been closed since the outset of the Covid pandemic in March 2020.

Deputy Kirsten Morel says the building hasn't been maintained properly by the government over the last 20 to 30 years.

"As a result of that, the operations, the management of the Opera House have had to pour their own money into maintaining the fabric of the building at the very most minimum of standards.

That's had a knock-on effect and that is something that I want to end.

A piece of work that's ongoing at the moment is to find a structure for the organisation to make sure that the building, which is always going to be rather a needy building because it's an old building, is properly maintained in a way that doesn't require the Opera House management to pour its own resources into that maintenance.

It's a really important problem that needs to be solved."

The Jersey Opera House won £2.2million in Fiscal Stimulus funding in April 2021 for renovation work.

The Economic Development, Sport and Culture department asked for an exemption from the requirement to carry out a tender process for a project manager, but that was declined.

It took four months to appoint that project manager, with inspections then revealing that the scale of the work was bigger than expected.

The government is now looking at how all available venues can be used for the arts during the ongoing Opera House closure.

Deputy Morel, who says he's incredibly sorry for the time taken to get it to reopen, says they're looking at several locations.

"Everything from the Arts Centre, to Haute Vallee School which has a wonderful theatre up there, some of the other schools as well - Les Quennevais has got a wonderful new theatre, all of the venues that are available, including the RJA&HS, and seeing how they can best be used going forward.

What I'm doing, and my colleagues are doing in the department, is working with performing arts groups to make them aware of the potential of these other venues and to try to use them to make sure we have performing arts throughout the year."

The extended closure of the Opera House has been described by the Performing Arts Development Group as another blow to the island's arts secotr.

Ryan Williams has called on the government to evaluate the process to think about why they're in this situation.

"They need to be looking after their buildings, they need to be investing to make sure we're not here again.

They need to make sure that in future, the arts are put first.

It's not just a hobby. It's good for islanders' mental health, their wellbeing, people like to be performing on-stage and people like to be visiting the Opera House as well to watch shows."

The chairman of the Jersey Opera House has described the additional delay to reopening the building as 'part bad and compensatory good'.

Pierre Horsfall has this message for Opera House supporters.

"You've been very patient.

I know you're aware that it's not the Opera House itself that has caused the problems, it is things to do with government, but once we're going, you're going to enjoy a really good, special Opera House like it hasn't been ever before."