The English National Opera will now receive £11.46m of National Lottery funding for the next financial year, following negotiations with the Arts Council England.

The decision comes following November’s ACE funding cuts which left the ENO without its £12.6m annual core grant. Instead, the London-based opera company was to receive £17m over three years as part of a plan to move its location, with Manchester cited by ENO as a possible new home.

The negotiation represents a 9% cut from the previous years funding for ENO, but the company have said the funding will ‘allow us to honour many of the contracts of the hundreds of freelancers we hire every year.’ In addition to this, it intends to stand by the subsidised ticket schemes, including free tickets for people under 21 and continue the work of ENO Breathe, supporting people in their recovery from COVID 19 with breathing re-training through singing.

Despite the grant adjustment, many of the previous plans for ENO’s season are still postponed, including the next instalment of the Ring Cycle, in partnership with the Met, which was due to continue with a new production of Siegfried next season.

There is still uncertainty for the future of the ENO. The company added: ‘We do remain concerned that this only gives audiences and our workforce one year’s reprieve, and still leaves a huge amount of uncertainty regarding the ENO’s future. ‘

ENO are asking that ACE invest at an ‘appropriate level’ going forward in order to deliver on the Government’s levelling up agenda, suggesting relocation could still be on the cards for the company.