![]() ![]() The Socialdemokratiska Arbetarpartiet (SAP Social Democratic Workers’ Party) was formed in 1889. However, the funding of what were formerly considered to be culturally worthy fine arts institutions has not diminished. A major change has also occurred in Sweden with the broadening of what is regarded as, in this case, music of high quality. The inclusion of all inhabitants in cultural activities is part and parcel of all the CPAs. The initial folkbildning ideal is still an inspirational source in the CPAs on all three levels. Most of the latter start with the rather undecisive Swedish word främja, which translates into ‘encourage, promote, further, or facilitate’, of which ‘promote everyone’s opportunities for cultural experiences, Bildung, and develop their creative abilities’ is the most relevant for this study. While the first CPA of 1974 was more or less copied word for word into regional and municipal CPAs, the 2009 national act has been reformulated into regional and municipal cultural strategies with more concrete objectives than the national cultural policy goals. ![]() Municipal institutions normally receive funding from all three levels of governments. Regional institutions are funded by both the Riksdag and the regional cultural councils. National government institutions receive funding only from the Riksdag (the national parliament). Furthermore, their funding is largely tax based. Although they are all separate entities outside the governmental administration, their boards consist of politically nominated members. The major Swedish opera houses and concert halls are state, regional or municipal government institutions. In Sweden, folkbildning is ascribed to the mostly voluntary education and formation of unprivileged groups of the population that was established within the framework of the three social movements that emerged during the nineteenth century: the free church movement, the sobriety movement and the labour movement (Key, 1897 SOU, 1952:23, 167 SOU, 1972:66, 47–51 Sundgren, 2007, ch. Modern Swedish cultural policy is based on the ideal of folkbildning, which was inspired by the Humboldtian concept of Bildung (Hofmann, 2010). Furthermore, because the work was undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic, the author was restricted to work within the borders of his country of residence. The choice of Sweden is principally due to the long tradition of explicit political goals to include, first, ‘manual workers’ (Engberg, 1921), then ‘the disadvantaged’ (SOU, 1972:66, 155), ‘underprivileged groups’ (SOU, 1972:66, 158), ‘an open social community’ (SOU, 2009:16, 21) and, now, ‘the broad public’ (Uppsala, 2020, 5 Region Västra Götaland, 2019, 13). The main research question is the following: Does the explicit cultural policy goal for social inclusion mean that increases in ticket prices have mirrored raised wages levels for workers? If not: has this been detrimental to workers’ access to opera houses and concert halls? An important sub-issue is whether price discrimination policies have been implemented to the advantage of the low-income strata of society. It includes data from the opening of the Oscarian opera house in Stockholm in 1898 until 2019. Workers’ wages are compared to clerks’ salaries and with ticket prices. If opera demand increases in the near future, this will possibly be based on the growth of income for population segments that already constitute opera audiences. It is much less likely that the growth of workers’ incomes during the twentieth century has led to a similar increase in working class demand for opera as it did for the bourgeoisie during the period studied. The choice of high-level ticket prices for the traditional content means that the standard audience remains monocultural. The idea is that attending such performances will make visitors interested in the normal repertoire, as well. They now focus on the promotion of special, ‘popular music’-based events as a response to social inclusion directives. However, they do it uniformly for all events. Managements do use some price discrimination tactics. The study shows that ticket price levels have risen thereafter to a level much less favourable for low-income workers. The most favourable ticket pricing policies for buyers were used in the decades around the first national Cultural Policy Act from 1974. The same kind of policy objectives concerning social inclusion of disadvantaged groups that were established in the beginning of the twentieth century is still proclaimed. ![]() Both wages and ticket prices have increased continuously. In this study ticket prices to Swedish opera houses and symphony orchestra concerts are compared to wages during the 1898–2019 period. ![]()
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