Madam, - For the first time since 1941, there will be no grand opera produced in Dublin by an Irish company this year, as a direct result of the Government's decision to reduce the anticipated level of funding for the arts in 2003. Opera Ireland's recent concert performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Gaiety Theatre was an aural, but otherwise half-realised, triumph, and all the more frustrating for that.
The Minister for the Arts, John O'Donoghue, should bring some of his uncompromising zeal to bear on this sad state of musical affairs! - Yours, etc.,
OLIVER McGRANE,
Marley Avenue,
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Dublin 16.