When Francisco Camps insisted on opening a large opera coliseum in Valencia, designed by Santiago Calatrava, few families of the native bourgeoisie had a real culture in the matter, as in Vienna, Paris or New York. Juan Roig, owner of Mercadona, or the Noguera, a leading clan of the Valencian ruling class, were the exception that confirmed the rule. The new rich, with great fortunes built in the heat of urban development and concrete, were looking for their own cultural capital in other latitudes. However, two decades later, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía has established itself in the city, as confirmed by the foundation’s annual accounts, and faces the end of its nineteenth season with an increasingly notable increase in its popularity and contributions from companies and private patrons. Income from ticket and season ticket sales in 2024, the last fiscal year closed, increased by 9.33% compared to the previous year.
Who finances opera in Valencia today? First, of course, the regional treasury. The public foundation, established by the Consell in 2005, received 20.6 million euros from the Generalitat budget for operating expenses and 700,000 euros for investment; in addition to a subsidy of a quarter of a million from the Valencia Provincial Council or 105,000 euros from the capital’s city council.
However, the Palau de les Arts also increased its income, especially from ticket and season ticket sales, with 4.7 million euros recorded in its latest deposited accounts (compared to 4.4 the previous year). Sponsorships and business collaborations increased by 14.51% (in a year in which Salvador Navarro, president of the Valencian Business Confederation until his notorious defeat due to clashes with Carlos Mazón, joined the foundation’s board of trustees).
In the list of collaborating entities, several construction companies specialized in public works stand out, as well as other successful bidders and the firm Broseta Abogados, one of the leading firms of the beautiful people and the Valencian business community, which increased its contribution from 3,636 euros to 8,250 euros. The Broseta family is no stranger to the Palau de les Arts. Pablo Broseta, brother of the president and CEO of the office, as well as a senior member of the Consell until his recent departure, was acquitted in 2020 by the second section of the Valencia Court in the case of the sponsorship of the Palau de les Arts.
Four years later, the construction company Becsa headed the list of collaborating companies of the foundation, whose shareholder Gabriel Alberto Batalla Reigada was convicted in 2018 of electoral crime and document falsification, after an agreement in accordance with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to confess the facts and thus reduce the sentence, in the piece of the ‘Gürtel case’ of the illegal financing of the Valencian PP. The firm has also been one of the most successful in handing out emergency contracts from the Generalitat for the dana. Even though it was the company that paid the most, Becsa reduced its contribution to the foundation by almost 3,000 euros.
Pavasal, another major beneficiary of the dana’s emergency contracts and who injected a total of 240,000 euros into ‘box B’ of the PP of Valencia (as confirmed by the ruling in separate piece A of the ‘Taula case’), increased her contribution to the opera from 20,573 euros to 24,223 euros. Below was Eulen, a well-known contractor of services in the fields of cleaning, security and nursing homes. The Gesmed Foundation, another firm specialized in residences, kept its contribution of 15,000 euros intact, as did Olivares Consultores Inmobiliarios, of Mario Olivares, with 6,308 euros. The construction company CYES entered in 2024 as a collaborating entity, with 17,343 euros, as did Pal-Art, a catering company, with 1,563 euros.
Patrons and private donations increase
However, the foundation also spent another dime through the Les Arts Patronage Circle, created in 2022 and financially supported by Ibex 35 business foundations, patrons and private donations that the accounts do not detail. The ACS Foundation kept its contribution fixed at 60,000 euros per year while the La Caixa Foundation reduced it from 40,908 euros in 2023 to 19,545 euros the following year. For its part, the Iberdrola Foundation was eliminated from patronage and reduced its contribution of 6,000 euros to zero in 2023. The Palau de les Arts received 70,336 euros from sponsorship by Telefónica in 2024, which the previous year had brought it 66,145 euros.
The Patronage Club offers various rates (from a modest 135 euros per year for friends of the house to 5,000 euros for large patrons), with their consequent tax deductions. Patrons, according to the foundation’s annual accounts, increased their contributions: from 31,972 euros in 2023 to 56,074 euros in 2024. Individual donations also grew, going from 31,145 euros to 67,865 euros. The accounts highlight the foundation’s “effort” to “obtain more private support”, which increased by 14.51%.
It was also a year of changes in the interior of the building conceived by Calatrava, with the upholstery of the seats in the Main Room and the replacement of its sides (for an amount of 558,193 euros), and the purchase of mobile LED spotlights (354,518 euros) and a system of nets and laser deterrents for birds (224,780 euros). On sets, costumes and props for productions released in 2024, the foundation spent 309,055 euros.
The artistic director’s remuneration: 137,563 euros
The Palau de les Arts left 2.4 million euros (slightly less than the 2.6 million in 2023) in purchases, production and artistic contracting, musical direction, casting and intellectual property. In personnel expenses, it rose from 16.8 million to 17 million in 2024. The cultural entity has three senior management positions, after the resignation of the deputy director of Resource Optimization. The artistic director, Jesús Iglesias, received a total remuneration (including living expenses and mileage) of 137,563 euros, below the salary of 156,864 euros (not counting compensation for “stay”) that the first mayor and artistic director, Helga Schmidt, who died in 2019, earned in her initial stage. The general director, Jorge Culla, received 90,706 euros.
The accounts also include artistic productions for 2025, with costs incurred in the previous year. The balance sheet details the amounts of the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, premiered at Les Arts on January 23 (250,833 euros), in addition to 21,862 euros from the work Roberto Devereux and 14,122 euros for Gianni Schicchi, released on June 4 and April 25, 2025, respectively.