“No strategic project”, significant operating expenses but “low” revenue: the management by the city of Marseille of the municipal opera and the Odeon theater is scrutinized in a report by the Regional Chamber of Accounts of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, made public on Tuesday.
The opera (1,800 seats) and the theater (800 seats) “have no strategic project” and “no annual report makes it possible to trace the detailed activity of the two cultural facilities” managed under direct municipal management and united under a management since 2013, notes the summary of the report, which covers the years 2016 and following. “The Odéon opera and theater do not have a formal establishment plan” and “are thus managed by the community over the seasons”, specifies the report, which adds that “the development of ‘a strategy requires prior in-depth knowledge of the public’, which neither of the two structures has undertaken.
“Neither the orchestra nor the opera have a national label”, continue the magistrates, according to whom this absence “deprived the opera of resources from the State” and “also” freed it ” of all the obligations related to the respect of specifications”. However, the city has been engaged since 2022 in a process to obtain the “National Opera in the region” label, specifies the report.
Furthermore, “in the absence of cost accounting, the municipality does not know the full cost of this service, which nevertheless employs more than 350 agents and generates operating expenses of more than 20 million euros per year, i.e. the equivalent to the operating budget of a municipality of 15,000 inhabitants”, notes the report, noting that in addition “revenues are low”, due in particular to an opaque free policy. “The rates are low, but the municipality cannot increase them, given the comfort conditions which should be improved”, with “buildings, warehouses and workshops (…) in an advanced state of degradation”, completes-t -he. At the same time, the activity of the two structures is “inflecting”, according to the report, which points to a reduction in the number of works and performances offered at the opera during the five seasons studied.
Finally, in terms of human resources, the magistrates castigate an “increasing recourse” to intermittent workers, in particular to “compensate for the absenteeism of civil servants” while the musicians, some of whom “cumulate several full-time jobs”, do not perform on average “only half or two-thirds” of the “number of services (rehearsals and performances) provided for by the orchestra’s work regulations”
In a report from December 2021, the Regional Chamber of Accounts had already severely pinpointed the city’s management of its municipal museums.
