The argument states that the high cost of staging an opera makes opera companies reliant on large corporate donations, which in turn reduces choice. The author concludes that opera companies should cut costs so they no longer have to rely on corporate donors, which would allow for greater diversity. We are are looking for an answer choice that weakens that argument.
Answer choice B gives us the fact that large sponsors might still donate even if budgets are reduced. However, the argument does not actually depend on IF they donate, but rather on if opera house are reliant on them to donate. The author thinks that cutting costs will end this reliance- at which point it will not matter whether big companies still donate or not. Just because they want to support the most famous operas will not stop opera houses from producing less well known operas since they would no longer rely on big corporate donors in this case. So, B does not weaken the argument or undermine the conclusion.
C states that opera companies would need corporate support for any opera that is not famous. If this were the case, then by cutting costs opera companies would only be able to produce the most famous operas. Since we know from the stimulus that big donors only support famous operas, and C tells us that without big donors the only operas that we could afford to produce would be famous ones, either way we would be unable to produce less famous operas.
C undermines the conclusion that reducing budgets will allow us to show less famous operas, so it weakens the argument.
