Opera houses as cultural white elephants? The effect of the creative city model, bureaucratic mismanagement and lack of accountability in Valencia's opera house

ABSTRACT

Cultural institutions are growing in importance as tools of cultural policy and for promoting the city brand. Moreover, these major cultural institutions devour the lion's share of public subsidies, sparking debate on the legitimacy of such public largesse and its “value”. In this connection, one needs to ask to whether opera houses are “cultural white elephants” whose sheer cost greatly outstrips their supposed public benefits. This paper analyses the case of Valencia's Palau de les Arts, where the neo-Liberal discourse of management flexibility was combined with a shocking lack of accountability. Moreover, the creative city frame, neo-Liberal discourse and practices, the elitist management and disconnection from local cultural have spawned a herd of “cultural white elephants” that have become the hallmark of Valencian cultural policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Opera houses
• urban policy
• cultural policy
• public administration
• white elephants

Notes

1 A field study based on semi-directional interviews with various agents of cultural policies in the City of Valencia was carried out as part of this research. However, the directors of the Palau de les Arts could not be interviewed directly. This was because they have been involved in sundry corruption scandals, making them unwilling to answer the kind of questions needed for sociological purposes. At the same time, reports from control agencies or press releases have been used to reconstruct this lack of official information.

2 The following persons were interviewed: Albert Girona (State Secretary of Culture of Generalitat Valenciana [Valencian Government]), Maribel Domenech (Professor of Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), and expert in visual arts), Antonio Bravo (Deputy Director of Cultural Heritage, the Valencian Regional Government), Maria Oliver (Local Councillor of Valencian Cultural Action), Vicent Flor (Institution Alfons el Magnànim-Diputación de València), Miguel G. Cortés (Director of the Valencian Institute of Modern Art), Núria Enguita (Per Amor a l’art – [For Art's Sake, Private Foundation]), Toni Gisbert (Acció Cultural del País Valencià [Cultural Action of Valencian Country]).

3 One of the building's iconic features, the 300-tile roof of white trencadís (broken ceramics used to create a crazed effect) has become one of the institution's biggest maintenance issues. In 2013, just seven years after the building's inauguration, some pieces of the trencadís fell off the façade. As a result, the whole roof had to be replaced. The repair works lasted until 2015, symbolising the crisis in which the cultural institution was immersed.

4 Metha told the media that the Ministry of Culture's failure to properly support the Palau de les Arts was one of the reasons for the crisis besetting the opera house (Levante, 2014).

5 The budgets of the Palau de les Arts and salaries are not made public and it is not known exactly how much the Intendant was paid. However, audits by the Valencian Government of the accounts revealed that payments covering two management positions (including that of Finance Director) came to €145,563 in 2014. If one assumes the sum was split evenly, the Intendant would have been paid a salary of €72,000 a year (Generalitat Valenciana, 2015b).

6 ACS company formed a Business Union (UTE) with ACS Dragados y Acciona and comissioned building the building of the Palau de les Arts. One can find at least two examples of such concessions (and there may well be others): (1) One of them was the EUTE formed by EULEN and GE Healthcare, received from the Generalitat Valenciana and awarded in 2013 for the maintenance of the electro-medicine equipment at the Castellón and La Fe hospitals, amounting to €1.7 million per annum (Source: EULEN, Available at: http://www.eulen.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/221013.pdf.). At the same time, the company has received €1 million for site surveillance since 2007 and renewed the contract annually without prior tender, thus violating the amended Public Sector Contracts Act, RDL 3 / 2011 (Generalitat Valenciana, 2013; Generalitat Valenciana, 2015b). This casts doubts on the “disinterested” nature of the donations the company has made since at least 2012; (2) Pricewaterhousecoopers was commissioned in 2010 to prepare a report on the possibilities of outsourcing the RTVV – something that was not made public (and then only partially) in 2012, despite the consultancy firm being paid €200,000 by the Generalitat Valenciana, Source: Valenciaplaza (http://epoca1.valenciaplaza.com/ver/106074/rtvv-perdio-el-informe-de-pwc-para-su-eorganizacion.html).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Universities of Spain: [Grant Number RTI2018-096299-B-I00].

Notes on contributors

Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins

Joaquim Rius Ulldemolins is PhD in Sociology from the UAB and EHESS. Currently, he is a Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia where he teaches on sociology of culture and sociology of social change. He is the author of several books and papers on the sociology of culture and cultural policy in national and international journals such as European Urban and Regional Studies, Urban Studies, European Planning Studies, Local Governance Studies or International Journal of Cultural Policy. Since 2015 he has been the director of Debats. Journal of culture, power and society (Alfons el Magnànim Institution), director of the Center for Studies on Culture, Power and Identities of the University of Valencia and the Valencia Centre of the Menéndez y Pelayo International University. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Revista Española de Sociología, Papers and Publicacions de la Universitat de València.