Plovdiv, two hours north of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, is a surprising small city. Late February, and spring is already here. The city smells fresh and awake, of coffee and syrupy cakes. Its footprint pre-dates both Rome and Athens by 800 years; walking up the calm, pretty pedestrian main street where elegant street cafes sit comfortably next door to casinos, the guide casually mentions that under the pavement lies a vast ancient amphitheatre. 100 metres further on, and we find the entrance excavated as the result of a Norwegian funding programme – a beautifully preserved pillared courtyard with various ornate porticos and antechambers. The tour continues – a complete and astounding Roman arena hangs carelessly over a motorway, cobbled side-streets veer off into grassy mounds with the remains of exquisite temples. Charming side streets back on to old Soviet concrete-horror blocks, and the citizens saunter. Plovdiv, apparently, is known to be a ’slow’ city – they call it ’ayliak’ – a sense of ease, living in the sunlit moment.

That afternoon, though, a less than relaxed group meets in the new, glinting and enormous culture centre. I am here with Bob Palmer, ex Culture and Heritage Chief for the Council of Europe and EU Capitals of Culture guru – a man of consumate experience and considerable diplomacy. We are to advise the city on its bid to become European Capital of Culture, to talk to their leadership, and to the city´s principal cultural operators about how they can use the opportunity to build an eventful city which engages the widest possible populus. In Plovdiv, with a 20% Roma population itself splintered into combatative factions, this is a fine ambition but a mine-loaded road to tread. The city has already been shortlisted by the EU, and its initial bid book is an intriguing read, full of self-deprecation, idealism (they have chosen the slogan Together ), good ideas, chaotic plans and bursting imagination. Bob talks very seriously about the immediate issues – a final bid is to be submitted in five months – about the deficits, managerial, artistic and financial that Bid 1 exhibits, about governance, planning, organisation, budgets. He is positive but uncompromising. Faces whiten. The deputy mayor, a young and clearly effective official, looks exhausted. My job is to talk about programming and building all-city participation. We discuss project development, how the city´s institutions can embrace genuinely new horizons and what collaboration really means. Bob is tough about the European dimension – something the EU, somewhat typically, expounds on lyrically without in any way defining what it means – and asks fierce questions which meet alarmed silence. We retire for a brief lunch (Plovdivians, it is clear, eat a lot of cheese) during which the deputy mayor stabs wearily at his phone.

In the afternoon, with a large group of culture operators present, we talk, probe, provoke and suggest. A journalist quarrels with a book publisher, and the local opera chief makes a commendable pitch for her company. The book publisher says that local standards are deplorable and is berated by a long-winded journalist. It is all depressingly familiar: European Capitals of Culture, it seems, deflate energy in everyone – partly, it must be said, because the EU itself – while describing this as their most successful programme – do so little to set clear boundaries, mentor applicants, finance appropriately to the programme´s aspirations, and support leadership.

Dinner, however, is very jolly – the book publisher tells an extraordinary story about his mother´s theft of icons from Finland – and full of cheese, we leave for Sofia. Plovdiv, best of luck. Your wish to be together is clear, and your city is a winner in its own right. And if I may, I´ll steal your slogan for Bergen, where ’together’ could be a fine aspiration for another beautiful small city with a penchant for heritage – and cheese.

Happy New Year!

Full of idealistic resolutions about gym membership and drastic dietary upheaval, last night I settled into the seasonal gloom to watch the opening episode of a boxed Blu-ray set given to me for Christmas. And I found an interesting message for anyone interested in programming. The show, written by the US team behind The West Wing, has nothing of the speed and toughness of the latter but many of the same characteristics: blondes whose decorative upper bodies conceal advanced degrees in economics; jaundiced political old-timers with bad drinking habits and a brilliant line in put-downs, back-office sex and some strong messages on power-mongering.

But this show has an interesting twist. It’s about a news channel that decides to tell the truth and to stick to the facts. No celebrities, no Sarah Palin moments (I´d forgotten her wonderful speech re immigration ’In Norwegia, those Norwegians wanna have their country to themselves…´), no unsubstantiated gossip. The channel´s ethic emerges from the following scenario: a jaded middle-aged TV news anchor of massive reputation loses his cool on a chat show when asked by a shiny young sophomore ’What makes America the greatest country in the world?´ Pressed hard for an answer, he says that actually it most certainly isn´t, that all men aren´t created equal, that the US is educationally, fiscally, politically and socially a mess – a deeply, deeply shocking utterance in God-blessed America, and a heart-stopping TV moment. Enter his ex-girlfriend, an altruistic, highly humane ex war-zone reporter turned executive producer and a new channel, based on integrity is born.

And, guess what? This fine, decent channels viewing figures are terrible. The overall network boss (Jane Fonda, no less) slides her alarming tinted glasses off her head and snarls ’I´m looking for a show with the guts to put ratings over integrity’.

The interesting message is perhaps something we all know, all recognise and, somewhat cynically, wish we didn´t: really first-rate, truthful work presented without glitz, innuendo or a good smear of voyeurism is much less likely to attract audience than the show – the opera, say – that features neon-painted counter-tenors and inflatable doll contraltos with a curious resemblance to Angela Merkel on skis.

The debate about regie opera – productions driven by the director´s vision rather than the composer´s original intentions – is nothing new of course, and at its worst has generated some ineffingly pompous defence of ’traditional values’.  New ideas and fresh interpretations are critical to any art form, otherwise we effectively put a stop to creativity. But the question of ratings, and the enormous emphasis put on the commercial viability of artistic ventures is another thing altogether. Real, truthful, profound art will never pay its own way however it is presented, unless you take Julia Roberts to La Traviata in Pretty Woman or put Mozart into the (justifiably) hit film The Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins. As Morgan Freeman says (I´m paraphrasing) ’I sure don´t know what they´re singing about, but it´s the most beautiful thing I ever heard’.

But in opera we have to hang on to our best aspirations – to try to build the magical triangle which links composer, performer and audience – and which creates a new world which may not be beautiful, but which excites and provokes us enough to feel a jolt forward in our thinking.

Now back to Blu-Ray. Will the ratings increase? Will the US learn to love straight talking? Will the hero turn out to adore Puccini? Episode Two tonight. Feel free to join me.