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Fewer performances meant that the Arts Council was subsidizing each E.N.O. ticket sold to a greater extent, and the company was often criticized for providing poor value for public money<\/a>.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the company said in an email that 90,000 people went to the company\u2019s 63 performances last season, a figure that means each ticket was propped up with \u00a3137, or about $168, of state funding. The spokeswoman added that attendance was lower than usual that season, because of the pandemic, and that the opera reached many more people through other means, including television broadcasts seen by 2.2 million viewers.<\/p>\n The Arts Council has defended its decision. Claire Mera-Nelson, the agency\u2019s director of music, said in a blog post<\/a> that she had seen \u201calmost no growth in demand\u201d for large-scale opera over the past five years, and had decided to prioritize funding for the art form \u201cat different scales, reimagined in new ways\u201d such as staging productions in parking lots, or pubs. Darren Henley, the Arts Council\u2019s chief executive, wrote in The Guardian<\/a> that \u201cnew ideas may seem heretic to traditionalists,\u201d but that opera needed to reinvent itself to \u201cremain exciting and meaningful to future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, Henley told British politicians<\/a> he was having discussions with the E.N.O. over how it could keep showing work in London, as well as elsewhere in England, but added, \u201cWe can\u2019t fund them in London.\u201d (The Arts Council declined an interview request for this article.)<\/p>\n While English National Opera\u2019s future is hanging on officials\u2019 whims, its audience seems hopeful that it will remain in London, somehow. At the Coliseum last week, before a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s \u201cThe Yeomen of the Guard<\/a>,\u201d the atmosphere was relaxed and informal. Audience members in winter coats and bobble hats arrived on foot, rather than in sleek cars, and headed into the theater, where a merchandise stall was selling T-shirts with the slogans \u201cChoose Opera\u201d and \u201c#loveENO.\u201d<\/p>\n Nick McConagh, 72, said he had been coming to the E.N.O. since the 1970s because its tickets were affordable. \u201cIt disproves the belief that opera is for the rich,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n