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  3. Less than five years ago, Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, how

Less than five years ago, Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, how

admin2015-02-12  3
问题     Less than five years ago, Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, however, the national company seals its comeback by announcing its most wide-reaching program to date. In an interview with The Times, Alex Reedjik, general director of Scottish Opera, explained that a series of collaborations with other companies would enable it to maximize its output without compromising its budget. He admitted that the partnerships were borne of financial necessity, but argued they would allow the company to reach greater audiences than ever before. "Collaborations are the way forward," he said. "We have often done co-productions in the past but they are more important to us now to enable us to achieve all of our hopes. The problem is that sets are very expensive. If you can share those costs with another organization and not impact on artistic integrity, that is a positive, welcome and necessary thing."
    Highlights of the 2009-10 season will include a new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, and a joint venture with Opera North The Adventures of Mr. Broucek, by Leos Janacek, featuring a 40-strong choir singing Hussite hymns, along with bagpipes and an organ. An unashamedly Italianate season this Autumn begins with a revival of Giles Havergal’s popular 1994 production of The Elixir of Love. There will also be a revival of the Tony-award winning director Stewart Laing’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme.
    The turnaround in the company’s fortunes is striking. In 2005, the year before Mr. Reedjik joined the organization, Scottish Opera was forced to make half of its staff, including the entire chorus, redundant and abandon its main-scale productions for a season after accumulating debts of around ￡4.5 million. The company’s core grant, which at that time came from the Scottish Arts Council(it is now funded directly by the government)had not risen for several years. However, it had also haemorrhaged funds by staging the hugely expensive Ring Cycle, and according to some critics, had been overspending on props, with rumors of cast members wearing ￡300 designer shoes.
    A ￡7 million rescue package put together by the then Labor-led Scottish Executive saved the company from going dark on a permanent basis, but the ease with which it almost went under forced a rethink of priorities. While the company continues to stage several major productions each season, it has also introduced smaller touring works—the acclaimed Five: 15 series—which pairs leading writers with composers to create 15-minute chamber pieces that could be developed into longer productions. The aim, says Mr. Reedjik, is to put on as much opera in Scotland as possible without breaking the bank. So far the strategy seems to be working, with audiences averaging at around 95,000 people in the past three years, a rise of almost 50 per cent compared with 2004-05, the season before the company went dark. "What we are trying to do now is live within our means and raise as much as possible from philanthropic means," said Mr. Reedjik. "We seemed to have dropped out of the news for dumb stuff— now we’re in the news for our interesting work."
Which of the following would the author LEAST probably agree on?
选项 A、Scottish Opera has been funded by Scottish Arts Council since its establishment.
B、Five is a well-recognized small touring work.
C、The company is striving for more charitable funding.
D、The media used to publish negative news about the company.
答案A
解析 属事实细节题。第三段第三句提到，苏格兰歌剧院以前的出资方是Scottish ArtsCouncil，但并非一直都是，现在是由政府直接资助的，故选项A符合题意。选项B与原文第四段第二句的内容相符，故选项B不符合题意。第四段第五句前半部分提到现在他们在以慈善方式筹集更多款项，后半部分提到他们已经摆脱了沉闷乏味的报道，因此可知过去媒体对他们的评价比较消极，故选项C、D均不符合题意。
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