单选题 Less than five years ago. Scottish Opera was trapped in a financial quagmire from which few thought it could recover. Today, however, the national company seals its comeback by announcing its most wide-reaching program to date. In an interview with The Times, Alex Reedjik, general director of Scottish Opera, explained that a series of collaborations with other companies would enable it to maximize its output without compromising its budget . He admitted that the partnerships were borne of financial necessity, but argued they would allow the company to reach greater audiences than ever before. "Collaborations are the way forward," he said. "We have often done co-productions in the past but they are more important to us now to enable us to achieve all of our hopes. The problem is that sets are very expensive. If you can share those costs with another organization and not impact on artistic integrity, that is a positive, welcome and necessary thing. Highlights of the 2009-10 season will include a new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini"s The Italian Girl in Algiers, and a joint venture with Opera North The Adventures of Mr. Broucek, by Leos Janacek, featuring a 40-strong choir singing Hussite hymns, along with bagpipes and an organ. An unashamedly Italianate season this Autumn begins with a revival of Giles Havergal"s popular 1994 production of The Elixir of Love. There will also be a revival of the Tony-award winning director Stewart Laing"s production of Puccini"s La Boheme. The turnaround in the company"s fortunes is striking. In 2005, the year before Mr. Reedjik joined the organization, Scottish Opera was forced to make half of its staff, including the entire chorus , redundant and abandon its main-scale productions for a season after accumulating debts of a-round £4.5 million. The company"s core grant, which at that time came from the Scottish Arts Council(it is now funded directly by the government)had not risen for several years. However, it had also haemorrhaged funds by staging the hugely expensive Ring Cycle, and according to some critics , had been overspending on props, with rumors of cast members wearing £ 300 designer shoes. A £ 7 million rescue package put together by the then Labor-led Scottish Executive saved the company from going dark on a permanent basis, but the ease with which it almost went under forced a rethink of priorities . While the company continues to stage several major productions each season, it has also introduced smaller touring works—the acclaimed Five: 15 series—which pairs leading writers with composers to create 15-minute chamber pieces that could be developed into longer productions. The aim, says Mr. Reedjik, is to put on as much opera in Scotland as possible without breaking the bank. So far the strategy seems to be working, with audiences averaging at around 95 ,000 people in the past three years, a rise of almost 50 per cent compared with 2004 -05, the season before the company went dark. "What we are trying to do now is live within our means and raise as much as possible from philanthropic means," said Mr. Reedjik. " We seemed to have dropped out of the news for dumb stuff—now we"re in the news for our interesting work. "
单选题 This text is probably abridged from______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:文章语言客观,只是简单地报道事实,进行叙述,不包含作者的情感或者态度,因此B项和C项均不符合。interview采访或面试一般为问答的形式,明显不符合该文章文体。story有“故事;新闻报道”的意思,很明显,本文符合新闻报道的文体,因此选A项。
单选题 The phrase "compromising its budget"(Line 5, Para. 1)probably means______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】解析:根据第一段可以推断出与其它公司合作对苏格兰歌剧而言益处多多,因此这里应该是“在不增加费用的前提下,使产出最大化。”因此选B。
单选题 It can be inferred from the last sentence in Paragraph 1 that______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:第一段最后一句提到“如果你能和其它组织分担费用,不影响艺术整体感,这是很好、很必要的事情。”由此我们可以推测资金的缺乏,会影响演出质量,因此选A。
单选题 The fact that "the ease ... forced a rethink of priorities"(Line 2-3, Para. 4)suggests that______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】解析:由下一句“While the company continues to stage several major productions each season,ithas also introduced smaller touring works—the acclaimed Five…”可知这个公司开始着眼于一些小型作品,转变了原先的模式,因此选C。
单选题 The best title for this article is______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:文章一开始便指出苏格兰歌剧通过合作走出困境,接着在第二段描述了一些具体的合作项目,在第三段和第四段对过去的困境和现在的情况进行了具体的介绍。A项符合文章主题,因此选A项。文章虽然提到了苏格兰歌剧命运的改变,但是本文的重点并不是描述其改变的情况,而是立足于目前的合作及其相关情况,因此B项不符合题意。