Turkey’s State Opera and Ballet takes austerity measures due to government’s policies

General Directorate of State Opera and Ballet is in a severe economic crisis and took the decision of austerity measures including the cancellation of new works of art and tours
Friday, 19 May 2017 07:37

The General Directorate of the State Opera and Ballet is in a severe economic crisis and took the decision of austerity measures including the cancellation of new works of art and tours. All programs related to the State Opera and Ballet are removed from the festivals, while the priority of the state institution becomes electricity, water and cleaning costs!

Selman Ada, the General Manager of the State Opera and Ballet, ordered all provincial directorates not to spend for anything except necessary expenses such as electricity, water, natural gas, telephone, the internet, cleaning service procurement, and not to release new works of art and tours until the end of the year.

According to the report in CNNTurk, the crisis also affected the festival programs. While Ada announced that the works "La Boheme" and "Aida" were removed from the program at 8th International Istanbul Opera Festival, she also warned the officials not to assign any staff for ballet courses among the directorates for the austerity measures.  

AN OFFICIAL LETTER WAS SUBMITTED TO THE PROVINCIAL DIRECTORATES   

The crisis has come to light with the official letters sent to all provincial directorates by Selman Ada. The General Directorate of the State Opera and Ballet, which has a budget of 286 million 890 thousands Turkish Liras, gave the alarm at the meeting where the expenditures of first 4 months in 2017 were evaluated.

In Selman Ada’s letter sent to the relevant provincial directorates under the title of 'austerity measures', it is written that the 2017 Financial Budget of the General Directorate of the State Opera and Ballet was evaluated at the meeting and it was determined that the expenditures of first four months, investment projects to be carried out and festival expenditures could not be covered with the current budget of the institution, and so there will be a budget constraint.

In the letter, it is also stated that supplementary appropriation requests are generally not approved by the Ministry of Finance. For this reason, the General Directorate of the State Opera and Ballet and the affiliated provincial directorates are obliged to take austerity measures in order to prevent a possible financial distress and public loss until the end of the year.

TURKISH GOVERNMENT’S EVERLASTING AGGRESSION ON THE ARTS

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had previously passed the draft law on the privatisation of all state-owned art institutions from the parliamentary committee last year. Under the draft law approved by the parliamentary committee, the obstacles to the privatisation of the Turkish State Theatres, State Opera and Ballet, City Theaters and all art institutions had been removed. The regulation on the state-owned art institutions aims to attack progressive and critical fine arts and theatre artists by unlawfully making them hired figures with ‘project’-based contracts while abolishing the concept of becoming a ‘state artist’.

According to the Third National Cultural Council’s report in 2017, the Turkish State Theatres will be administratively privatised within five years. One of the most striking points in the report was that theatre plays and programs will predominantly include ‘indigenous and national’ ones which actually mean ‘Turkish-Islamic synthesis’ under the ruling AKP.

The Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) in İstanbul was also closed to the artistic activities by the AKP government in 2008 under the pretext of "renovation". Since then, AKM has been abandoned to its fate.  

All these steps taken by the AKP government attacking the arts should be considered as the last stage of destruction of Turkey’s enlightened and progressive vein. Within this context, it should be also underlined that the bad condition of the General Directorate of the State Opera and Ballet is a part of this comprehensive aggression carried out by the Turkish government.