Over the past two decades, opera attendance across America has been on the rise, according to OPERA America, the service organization for opera companies. From 1982 to 1992, attendance grew by nearly 25 percent; from 1992 to 1997, it grew another 12.5 percent. An estimated 16.5 million Americans attended an operatic performance in 1997. Operas attract a diverse crowd; 58 percent of audiences are female and 17 percent are racial minorities.

In fiscal year 1998, state arts agencies awarded 606 grants totaling $9.9 million to opera and musical theater companies. More than 41,000 artists participated in projects receiving that support. The average grant to an opera or musical theater was $16,303. Roughly $4.6 million in grants, or 46 percent, went for general operating support.

State arts agency allocations for arts education continue to grow. From FY 1992 to FY 1998, arts education grant dollars increased by 74 percent. In that same period, appropriations to state arts agencies grew by only 42 percent. Staff members devoted to arts education occupy 45 full-time state arts agency positions, more than any other program; six states added full-time managers from 1994 to 1998.

Growth in this program area is encouraged by recent evidence that students educated in the arts generally have better reading, writing and mathematics skills than students with no arts background. For that reason, as well as the intrinsic value of arts education, state arts agencies seek to make the arts basic to the schooling of all youth, to increase public awareness of the benefits of arts education and to increase the quality of arts education throughout the nation. That is an important role for state arts agencies because many policy decisions about schooling are made at the state level.

To facilitate arts education, state arts agencies work with teachers and artists on professional development, support artist residencies in schools, work to develop state- and local-level curricula and advocate the benefits of the arts in schools. For example, 80 percent of all state arts agencies offered professional development workshops for teachers. For more information see the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies' publication Arts Education in Action: The State Arts Agency Commitment at www.nasaa-arts.org/new/nasaa/publications/arts_ed_action.shtml.

STAFF CHANGES AT THE OAC

Beth Fisher, director of public information at the Ohio Arts Council for 13 years and the agency's legislative liaison, has become development director at the Wexner Center for the Arts. During her two decades on the staff of the Ohio Arts Council, Fisher lead a redesign of agency publications, developed marketing plans, coordinated partnerships with media and other arts organizations and played a key role in international cultural exchanges.

Viewers at the opening of the exhibition Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland in Vienna earlier this summer included, from left, Malcolm Cochran, artist; Barbara Robinson, Ohio Arts Council Board Chair; Mary Lucier, artist; Maya Lin, artist; Lorand Hegyi, director of the Museum of Modern Art/Ludwig Foundation in Vienna; Kathryn Hall, U.S. ambassador to Austria; Kerry James Marshall, artist; and Robert Stearns, curator. Illusions of Eden is one component of The Heartland Project, a series of exhibitions and a website about culture and present-day life in the American Midwest and Central Europe. Illusions of Eden is produced by Arts Midwest and the Ohio Arts Council¹s International Program in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art.