ENO 2017-2018 season

Once, ENO new season announcements were exciting. If only that could be said of the 2017-2018 season.  Perhaps this was inevitable given the unprecedented funding cuts. The ENO still has the potential to be the creative powerhouse it once was, but not, I suspect,  under the new system.  Whether Cressida Pollock's management genius has turned the company around, or in a different direction, still isn't clear.  It's been a while since the Arts Council England's "special measures" - still largely unspecified  - have been in place, so it would be interesting to know  how far these have been addressed.

Four new productions, the most promising being Verdi Aida, which launches the new season and could well be the hit of the year.  It's directed by Phelim McDermott, on whom we can depend for good theatre.  His Philip Glass Satyagraha, with Improbable,  premiered in 2007, was so inventive that it's being revived yet again in February 2018.  Glass's unusual idiom defies the notion that avant garde doesn't sell. It does when it's done well.  Indeed, Glass operas have contributed greatly to the ENO's creative reputation.  Last year McDermott's  Glass Akhnaten was a  success.   Aida, with its potential,for grand theatrical special effects,  should be well suited to McDermott's style.  The cast will include Latonia Moore, Michelle DeYoung, Morenike Fadayomi, Gwyn Hughes Jones, Brindley Sherratt , Matthew Best and Musa Ngqungwana.  Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts.  ENO loyalists should be out in force to show support for the comapny's traditioins.

The ENO and the Met have understandings.  Nico Muhly's Two Boys premiered at the ENO before moving on, somewhat changed, to the Met. Muhly's new Marnie at the ENO will be conducted by Martyn Brabbins, now the ENO Music Director, a specialist in modern English -anguage opera.  That should ensure a good musical performance, however the opera turns out.   (Keri-Lynn  Wilson, incidentally is Mrs Peter Gelb)

Following on the success of Mike Leigh's The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe, directed by Cal McCrystal, whose background is in theatre. Then Daniel Kramer's production of La Traviata with Claudia Boyle.  

Revivals of audience favourites include Jonathan Miller's The Barber of Seville, Richard Jones's Rodelinda, Phelim McDermott's Satyagraha, Robert Carsen's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Fiona Shaw's The Marriage of Figaro which will also be conducted by Martyn Brabbins. 

ENO 2016-2017 - deeper thoughts

Announced today, the ENO 2016-2017 season. First, the easy bits : three new productions, one a  British premiere. Then, perhaps more intriguing, speculation on the future. Far from consolidating expenses, logical enough in the circumstances, the ENO plans to stage one-third of its productions outside the Coliseum by 2018/2019. The economics behind this aren't clear cut by any means, so the portents are worrying. What are the real implications for the future ?

The three new productions  Mozart Don Giovanni conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, in a Richard Jones production with Christopher Purves, Clive Bayley, Caitlin Lynch, Christine Rice, Mary Bevan  and Allan Clayton.  Good solid people there: we're guaranteed a good experience if nothing specially tempting.

Much more exciting - Brenda Rae's London debut as Lulu in Alban Berg's opera, scheduled for November 2016. She's a huge catch - even ROH hasn't nabbed her yet.  She's appeared in major roles in Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Santa Fe, and was a sensational Armida at Glyndebourne in Handel Rinaldo, where she and Luca Pisaroni stole the sho. (Read my review of the premiere HERE. London audiences will also remember her (again singing with Pisaroni) in Handel Radamisto conducted by Harry Bicket at the Barbican in 2013. Read my review HERE. Rae isn't solely a baroque singer: she's done a lot of Strauss  She should make a very good Lulu - probably more feisty and sexy than some, but that's perfectly valid in the role.  This will be the William Kentridge production also seen in Amsterdam and at the Met.

The ENO will continue to honour its role in creating English-language work with Ryan Wigglesworth's first opera, The Winter's Tale, based of course on Shakespeare, which he'll also conduct.  Excellent cast - Iain Paterson, Leigh Melrose, Susan Bickley and Sophie Bevan   This will also be the directing debut of Rory Kinnear, famous for acting Shakepeare in the theatre.

Revivals include Rigoletto, Tosca, The Pearl Fishers The Pirates of Penzance and Partenope. 

But back to the plans for working outside the Coliseum.  Transferring to the Hackney Empire for experimental work like Charlie Parker's Yardbird might make sense, as it's not very mainstream, and the place is bigger than Ambika 3, whose name confounds most people.  But why do Elgar Dream of Gerontius at the South Bank?  Admittedly, it won't be staged, and it will, hopefully, provide good work for the ENO Chorus and orchestra. Watch out for more news. And  the ENO's The Mikado will play ten dates in Blackpool.  That would tick the right political boxes, like "regional" and "popular" but it isn't necessarily the prime purpose of a company committed to opera as art form. 

New Artistic Director ENO - what lies ahead ?

Just announced, many long months after the departure of John Berry, the new Artistic Director of the ENO - Daniel Kramer.    The ENO press release emphasizes "The appointment was made by a panel of ENO Board Members chaired by Harry Brunjes, including Louise Jeffreys and Anthony Whitworth-Jones. The views of members of the Orchestra and Chorus and the senior artistic team were also taken into account. Daniel was unanimously chosen as the exceptional individual from a very strong field of candidates".They probably need a show of unanimity in these troubled times. 

The Chairman of the ENO Board,  Harry Brunjes, says "This marks a turning point in the Company’s history as we move towards a new approach to planning seasons and reaching out to new audiences in London and indeed throughout the country."  Kramer himself says "My intention is to ..... inspire audiences night after night with a thrilling programme of musical diversity, attracting audiences from opera to operetta through to popular music. We will work, too, with the wider community outside the Coliseum, to develop emerging talent and new audiences. We are here to play and sing for you."

Hmmmm.....what does that really mean? Popular music? Leaving the Coliseum? What about the ENO's tradition of cutting-edge innovation ? Or any commitment to new English-language opera ? Will the ENO become yet another small-scale company presenting safe and bland "family" entertainment in sub sub West End venues. As I've written so many times, it is short-sighted to sacrifice the unique nature of the ENO for short-term expediency.  Unfortunately, arts policy in this country bears no relation to the realities of the arts as part of the economy. This lack of basic business nous, with its petty-minded parochialism, spells death for creativity. Read my piece Solutions for the ENO: vision not pettiness. 

What will any Artistic Director be able to do against this background of small-minded philistinism ? Kramer's first essay with the ENO was Birtwistle's Punch and Judy at the Young Vic.  The  brashness of that production worked fine because the opera  depicts puppets obsessed with mindless destruction.  There are deeper undercurrents in the work, but usually lost beneath the shock value.  His other work in mainstream opera was Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle  in 2009, part of a double bill with an very dull Rite of Spring.  Kramer's Duke Bluebeard's Castle wasn't Bartók's, but Josef Fritzl's. I don't at all mind free adaptations but this oversimplified the fundamentals of the opera. Read my review here. 

There's nothing wrong with sensationalism per se,  as long as it has artistic and musical basis, but how will that square with the new constraints the ENO seems fated to adopt ?  Kramer directs the new Tristan und Isolde, which starts at the ENO in June.  But an Artistic Director does more than direct.   Will Kramer have the vision to create a genuinely interesting new profile for the ENO?  Operetta isn't the way to go. It may appeal to audiences determined to divest opera of intellect, but as Chabrier's L'Etoile at the ROH showed, operetta doesn't work in a big house.  Operetta does need wit and flair.  Remember the disastrous Die Fledermaus in 2013 ? So maybe the way ahead is musicals and showtime tat.  Will the Coliseum return to its music hall origins?  Many have much to gain from that. But not those who care about opera as art. 

Not the usual Brahms German Requiem - ENO chorus

The ENO Chorus will be doing Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem (A German Requiem) in three churches around London on 15th, 16th and 29th April.  But not the usual Brahms German Requiem. Instead, the relatively less well known "London" version from 1871. It's not a transcription but a through composed chamber adaptation written by Brahms himself.  The ENO chorus will be conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, with Eleanore Dennis and Benedict Nelson as soloists with Kate Golla and Chris Hopkins as pianists. Get tickets here.

Brahms's ideas differed from conventional approaches to Requiem Masses.  He expressed his values as an agnostic, a humanist and a North German. His  contemporaries joked that conservative Catholic Viennese audiences needed a stretch of imagination to fully appreciate it. The chamber version is even more spartan and pure than the version for full ensemble, and thus lends itself well to more intimate performance spaces - closer still to the rugged  spirit of Lutheran pietism  While the impact is less powerful the focus is more personal. "One man and his God" whatever that God might be.  The benchmark recording, from 2004, is by Accentus , conducted by Laurence Equilbey, a performance so beautifully ethereal that the voices seem to take flight like a flock of birds, each individual but co-operating in tight formation. 

The ENO Chorus will be using two pianos to  better "stretch" the balance. this also works better because it showcases the piano parts. The crucial line of the music is articulated clearly, so it feels  understated and yet definitive. When the famous melody appears, and the voices intone, the music can seem like a moment of private contemplation.  This foundation allows the voices to soar, unfettered. While almost no-one is in the superhuman league of Accentus (then with Sandrine Piau)  the ENO Chorus is extremely good, and one of the company's great assets.  Support them - they are too good to be wasted. Ideally, if these concerts succeed, they could bring extra income as well as giving London a new specialist, fully professional choir, with a mission exploring unusual choral repertoire. Please see my piece on helping the ENO to make money by capitalizing on its unique position in the market, much more effectively.  

Solutions for the ENO? Vision not pettiness

Recrimination is like masturbation. It's all very well, but not ultimately  productive. Myopia has  marred too much of the debate about the future of the ENO: small minds focusing on small issues, unwilling or unable to handle wider issues.  The ENO deserves better.  So read Rupert Christiansen's latest on the ENO.  It's worrying when you find  common ground with Rupert, though in person, he's always  nice to me. But then, so is David Mellor. Agree or disagree, the article's better than the woefully vacuous cut-and-paste that usually passes for opinion. 

So whither the ENO? The ENO plays a vital role in keeping the cultural ecology in this country healthy. Many people, for reasons of their own, would be glad to see it go, but the ENO's demise will damage the system long term. The fact is, the arts market is global, and will become increasingly more so with technological change.  Like it or not that means London.  London is economically, demographically, historically where it's at.  Spreading resources might serve political agendas, but that's not how things work in the real world.  Shakespeare didn't stay in Stratford.  Communal arts need a focused community in order to thrive. Micro-mini organizations just can't provide the right critical mass.  It's wiser to concentrate resources for maximum impact, rather than to water things down by multiplication.

Politicians and their stooges with their pork-barrel values cannot comprehend that you can't grow culture by diktat. The arts are not a form of social engineering. The arts are no panacea for inequality, deprivation and a poor education system. If schools could operate properly, arts organizations shouldn't need to do their job for them. Politicians love the word "accessibility" because it throws blame on the arts and diverts attention from real problems  elsewhere.

What then are the options for the ENO? The absolute fundamental is that it's an arts organization whose primary purpose is to deliver artistic excellence. And that it does, give or take inevitable misses among hits. The nature of art is risk and innovation. That was the message of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg which the ENO produced last year in a remarkably effective translation (Read my review HERE).  So innovative work isn't good box office? Think The Mastersinger, Satyagraha, Benevenuto Cellini. Sadly, there are audiences who'd prefer safe, semi-amateur work. There were some who thought that Pagliacci at the ROH should have dispensed with the irony Leoncavallo so specifically highlighted in the Prologue. We'd all become clowns to please that mob. Real success in the arts cannot be measured by sales alone.  What the ENO does best is what it should be doing. Suits may whine, but making money for the sake of making money is not a good way to go.  In the current situation, I'm not sure that mounting more productions is an option.  Maybe things like Sweeney Todd can pay the bills, but they shouldn't become what the ENO stands for.

This is where the ENO stands to make most money, by spreading costs and risks and working with other opera companies and houses, not only in the UK but abroad. It's been doing this for years, making arrangements with the Met, with Amsterdam and so on.  This is how the business works and why it is done. It's where attention should focus, not on gimmicks like a café.  The ENO can't afford to go out of town itself, but it can make money by giving other houses a  home in London and give them higher profiles, and profits to the benefit of all.  At a stroke that would integrate London with other parts of the country, like Wales, the North and Scotland. It would blow out of the water the case for diverting funds from London. The case is not regions versus London, but regions and London working together.   Building up the ENO both in terms of production and in nurturing creativity would reinforce Britain's credibility as a centre for artistic excellence in an increasingly competitive global market.

Besides, sales percentages would look better if there weren't so many seats to sell. The answer is not, however, moving to smaller premises.  The Coliseum is the finest, biggest theatre in the best possible position in the West End.  If the ENO had to move, it would lose the immense benefits of being so central, which would further cut into box office. It would also have to pay commercial rents elsewhere instead of enjoying its current "rent protection" status, which would again rip apart its finances. So why the pressure to leave the Coliseum?  Changing the capacity percentage means nothing if the company loses out big time.  The sad fact is that the Coliseum is a magnet for those who'd like it turned over to commercial  interests, even though it was financed by public money.  One can understand tycoons salivating, but opera fans shouldn't be fooled. The ENO could collapse under the double whammy of losing its prime position and facing higher overheads. Better I think to look for other ways of using the building than as a café, such as closing the uppermost levels and hiring them out for other use.

The onus, therefore, isn't thinking small but thinking big.  The ENO is in a unique position because it serves an English-speaking market. English is a world language, so the marketing possibilities are enormous.  Nowadays, anyone can click onto the network whether they're in Huddersfield or Hokkaido. Salford or Seoul. They'll go where there's something compelling to listen to, not because it pleases local politicians.  Moreover, because the ENO has a commitment to the English language, it could use that to its advantage by promoting work in English. Already it has a reputation for Britten, Turnage,  Glass and Adams, which it could build on. It's brought other British repertoire to the fore, like Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea and the wonderful Pilgrim's Progress (see my review HERE)   Supporting modern British repertoire is also vitally important.  There is good new work in English out there, but unfortunately a public and a press that doesn't know or care.  Imagine if the ENO had nabbed George Benjamin's Written on Skin?

There's also no reason the ENO couldn't do other British repertoire like plays or concerts, which don't cost so much to mount but would draw income.  That would make the most of being so close to Trafalgar Square and St Martins in the Fields, where people go for music already.  to corner the tourist market, whi8chn iusn't just international but also British.   What the ENO really needs is vision, not suits and bean counting. But it can't do vision unless it gets support from Arts Council England, from the government and from the otherwise petty-minded public.

Whither Wigglesworth? ENO Director quits

Mark Wigglesworth has resigned as Music Director at the ENO. It's regrettable, but shouldn't be a shock. Wiggleworth's appointment was a surprise, too, when it was first announced in January last year. He was a catch for the ENO since he's a good conductor, charismatic and, to put it delicately, a personality. a strong person to have around at a time of crisis. I had high hopes. I'm shattered, but not surprised. Wigglesworth isn't a guy to take crap. Read HERE my latest pice Solutions for the ENO ? Vision not pettiness  making suggestions for marketing the ENO in the context of national and international global market.  That's where the money lies, niot in cutting staff.

At the time, though, Rupert Christiansen said "the appointment of Wigglesworth will raise eyebrows in the business........ he comes marked with a chequered track record. Ever since he appeared on the musical scene as a boy wonder and was appointed Associate Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1991 at the tender age of 27, he has been dogged by accusations that he is explosively difficult to work with: the evidence includes the abrupt termination of his relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as well as a musical directorship of La Monnaie in Brussels which lasted only months. He has never “gone steady” with any other major operatic organisation." 

For a change Rupert and I  agreed. We've both been around a while. At the time I wrote"Wigglesworth gets very good jobs but doesn't necessarily conform. Being emollient is part of a conductor's job description. In fact there are several conductors who are better at pleasing benefactors and corporate interests than at making music..... Maybe Mark Wigglesworth is exactly what the ENO needs: someone who will speak his mind at a time when the ENO is being bullied into becoming bland to please a section of the public who don't really like opera, music, stagecraft or indeed anything that challenges them........In the wild game of conductor chess, who knows who will be moving where and when? Whatever happens, the next few years at the ENO are not going to be boring."

Since the start of the season in September, the ENO has been building up Wigglesworth's profile because he's good publicity.  He was an asset and they needed to keep him happy. So his departure will be construed as a major blow against,the ENO.  But let's put this into,perspective.

No doubt some in the media will tut-tut cleverly and find a way to blame the ENO for its own demise. But situations like these are never the fault of any one individual. Basically, we don't really know for sure who is behind what and why, though I'm pretty sure things are not what they seem. Remember how Martyn Rose slammed John Berry for "being the problem". Berry's been gone for ages. But it's much easier for the media to churn out stale old mantras than to analyze the situation.  The ENO is not facing a  crisis because of any one individual, or group but because its funding has been savagely cut by Arts Council England.  Blaming the Board is a bit pointless when it has no room to manouvre.

A lot of people would have a lot to gain if the ENO were to collapse,  and its assets, such as the Coliseum, were stripped. But that's myopic. In the long term, the ENO is a vital part of the industry for the whole of Britain, as well as beyond.  When will the media wake up?

Please see my numerous articles on the ENO, on arts policy in this country and more, specifically:

ENO Radical Rethink:
|The ENO Chorus and the Death of 1000 Cuts
The Case for a Concert Hall in London - Wider Perspectives

ENO Chorus - latest news

The ENO has struck a deal with Equity whereby the ENO Chorus will be employed on nine-month contracts August to April inclusive. It's not an ideal solution for many obvious reasons - how are the chorus members going to afford living in London without incomes? In theory, they will have first right of refusal should the ENO  create other work during the summer, butt hat's not guaranteed. Still, what choice do either the ENO or Equity have? The cuts are happening not because the ENO board wants them but because the company's budget was slashed by the Arts Council England, for reasons still not entirely transparent.  Cuts are apparently being made in  executive salaries, and management positions aren't being filled. The problem doesn't lie with Cressida Pollock, or with the Board of the ENO, but with the punitive loss of funding. Current arts policy in this country simply does not recognize the importance of the arts in the economy or how the ENO is integrated into the system.

Will the ENO die a Death of 1000 Cuts? Are the cuts to the Chorus just part of a wider strategy? Maybe some would prefer micro mini companies and semi-amateur performance, sharing the goodies round rather than concentrating them where they're most effective. Please read my articles:

|The ENO Chorus and the Death of 1000 Cuts
The Case for a Concert Hall in London - Wider Perspectives

Philip Glass Akhnaten ENO

Philip Glass Akhnaten with the ENO, at the Coliseum, London, in a new production directed by Phelim McDermott, who created the extraordinary Glass Satyagraha, one of ENO's great hits, regularly revived.  Akhnaten is even better known than Satyagraha, and has received many productions over the years, so if this one succeeds, it will be a good thing.

Akhnaten, is part of a trilogy about conceptual ideas,: it's more than narrative entertainment, and needs to be assessed from that perspective. What's scary about conceptual thinking?

All three operas deal with the minds of men (and women) who changed the way we think to a degree : In Einstein on the Beach (read my review HERE and Why I defend Bianca Jagger HERE)   Glass dealt with Einstein, an ordinary man whose ideas made him a celebrity even though most didn't really understand what he was doing. In Satyagraha, Glass showed how Gandhi scrapped pamphleteering for direct action. Read my numerous pieces on Satyaghara HERE and HERE. In Akhnaten, Glass picked the one Pharoah in millennia who tried to substitute a single, unitary God for a complex of mythological entities.

Akhnaten is possibly the strongest, musically, of the whole trilogy. The texts are sung in Eygptian, Hebrew and Akkadian without English translations for a very good reason. Akhnaten believed in an abstract God who couldn't be defined in narrow terms. As we listen to the incantations in languages we don't understand we respond as an abstract experience. Anyone who grew up with the Latin Mass shouldn't have any problem connecting spirituality with mystery. As Gandhi discovered, there are ideas that go beyond words.

Hence the importance of listening . Sure, the repetitions can be soporific. When Glass is opaque,  eg the awful The Perfect American (read my review HERE) he can be mind-numbingly dull.  But when Glass connects form to meaning, as in In the Penal Colony, he can produce taut works of near genius. Read my pieces on In the Penal Colony HERE and HERE. Listen to that audio CD of In the Penal Colony to appreciate how the music itself tells the story, drilling itself painfully into your subconscious, just as the infernal machine drills itself into its victim.  It's not easy listening, but when you focus, you can hear the myriad, tiny, changes of inflection and colour. At least in a Phelim McDermott production, there's lots to look at.

Thus to Akhnaten as music.   There are long stretches where no-one sings anything at all.  But once again, listen attentively. It's almost a piano concerto in that a piano weaves through the orchestral textures, sometimes assertively, sometimes concealed. It is the voice of purity, the voice of a young Pharoah who believes in a single God of Faith while multiple godheads chatter around him, often with menace. Hence the use of counter tenor, a voice type at once vulnerable and assertive. Akhnaten gets wiped from history, but his basic idea applies in other systems of belief.  Are human beings  programmed to prefer graven images and idols  When Nabucco was done at the Royal Opera House, |(my reviews here and here)  there were many in the audience who were enraged because the set was so abstract and so austere.  Surely  some of the booing mob might have realized that the Hebrews worshipped an invisible God and rejected graven images, however golden? Verdi knew. He'd read the Bible and respected Judaism. Nabucco is also a subtle dig at religions that verge on idolatory.  Hopefully, when this Nabucco is revived later this season, audiences will appreciate it better.

Please see also  the ENO chorus and the death of 1000 cuts plus numerous other posts i've written on the ENO crisis and on British arts policy (or the lack thereof) 

The ENO Chorus and the Death of 1000 Cuts

The primary purpose of any serious arts organization is to create excellence. High artistic standards are the Golden Eggs that give the goose its reason for existence. Compromise those standards and you might as well cook the goose and carve it up for dinner. Which would be fine for those guests who benefit from the immediate proceeds, but what happens when there are no geese to produce golden eggs any longer? That is the real crisis facing the ENO, and, indeed, British arts in general.

British arts policy suffers from a perfect storm of short-sighted superficiality, the  presence of vested interests, and sheer bloody mindedness. I've written many times about the need for joined-up thinking, acknowledging the role the arts play in the national and international economic system.  But pigs might fly. Business and politics have become Supermarket Sweep: the Tv game show where you fill your trolley to maximum value in a limited time, whether you need the goods or not. The electorate get what they deserve.

That the ENO is in crisis isn't news, but given the level of media coverage on it and on the arts in general, one wonders if journalism isn't in crisis, too. Once, in theory, journalism was independent,  analytical and informative.  I've given up on the Telegraph.  At least, to the Guardian's credit, they've changed their Arts Correspondent to someone who makes an effort.   The Murdoch-owned Times wisely lets its readers provide the story, rather more revealingly than a house writer might dare. But the BBC coverage has reached a nadir. Shameful, especially worrying since the BBC itself is under serious threat.

No, the crisis at the ENO isn't caused by the current CEO, Cressida Pollock. She's inherited problems so great - and not just of the ENO's doing - that I feared she'd be a lamb to the slaughter. That she's survived even this long deserves respect.  While much of the original restructuring plan - especially the café - probably won't work.

Hence the idea of cutting back the chorus and orchestra to save money.  This isn't good. The ENO chorus is wonderful, the foundation on which most productions are built, since the ENO can't afford top international stars, other than those it talent spotted when they were younger. The loyalty of some ENO big names, like Stuart Skelton, Iain Paterson etc. says a lot about the high regard they have for the ENO's artistic standards. Take heed! The ENO chorus and orchestra are good because they are a team of professionals  who work together well. You can't replace that expertise with the equivalent of a pick-up band chosen at random according to who happens to be around at any given time. Anyone worth hiring needs consistency of employment, not zero-hour contracts.  So the ENO doesn't operate year round   Neither do most arts organizations. In any case, summer festivals would be pinched out if they were. To avoid cutting back on chorus and orchestra, the ENO management is taking voluntary cuts in pay. Respect that.  Potentially the biggest source of revenue is production-sharing, which reduces cost and risk.  The opera business is international, and integrated: the ENO is part of a wider network. It's sheer nonsense to assume, as has been suggested, that this tried and true system was an ego trip by any one individual.  The ENO is part of this system because it does good work. Mess with the quality of the ENO artistic team and mess with the system.

We don't really know the state of ENO finances. In the last year for which figures are available, the balance sheet was in the black (just).  These figures are audited: demanding to see the books makes one wonder what the motivations really are.  Things cut both ways: The Arts Council England hasn't been specific about the reasons behind the special measures. So where is the pressure coming from?  Much of the debate has focussed on divorcing the ENO from its base, the Coliseum, the biggest theatre in London, situated in a prize position in the heart of the West End's showland. The freehold of the Coliseum is the ENO's greatest assets - a veritable goldmine.

In the course of the debate in the Times, Sir Peter Jonas, former Chairman of the Board of the ENO,  revealed on 12.12.15 that the ENO board "secured the Coliseum for £12.4 million to ensure ENO’s future. The funds were raised directly from government with £1 million of lottery funding. An extra £1 million was donated privately to kickstart the building’s renovation. The Arts Council did not contribute and, perhaps out of pique, demanded a charge be put on the title whereby if ENO should cease to exist in its present form the Arts Council could appropriate the freehold.".

Since the Arts Council doesn't itself operate as an arts organization, it could presumably find ways of passing the freehold onto others. whose priorities might be different.Many winners ! But the losers will be the British arts industry  as a whole.

See also my What's really ahead for the ENO ?

What's really ahead for the ENO ?

At last, something of a debate about the future of the ENO, thanks to an open letter in the Times signed by eminent dignitaries, and, signfigantly, Antonio Pappano, who knows something about the real business of opera.  Pappano is right: the public is entitled to know what's really going on behind the scenes.

The ENO is an important part of the overall arts network in this country and abroad. What happens to the ENO impacts on everything else.  The real problem is that there is no coherent arts policy in this country, and even less understanding of Britain's role in the ecology of the international arts. There have been many reports in recent years, worryingly all written in the same kind of corporate-speak, which makes one wonder if there's some kind of self-perpetuating industry generating reports for the sake of creating reports. So everyone says the same, they must be right ?  Not.

What we really need is cogent analysis. Will that be possible with an Arts Council England structurally hamstrung on a philosophy that negates the simple fact that Britain is a centralized country?   Or policies that reflect demographic change?  And that technology is changing the whole way the arts  and audiences operate. The arts are very much part of the British economy, and possibly one of the biggest exports, not only in financial terms but also in terms of national prestige.  The arts also have significant foreign policy impact. In an era when hearts and minds count as much as bombs, we'd be crazy, to undermine what puts the "Great" into Great Britain. The previous ENO Chairman, Peter Bazalgette,  moved on to become Chairman of Arts Council England. He said he was not involved with the decision to slash funding to the ENO. However, he should have been in a position to appreciate where the ENO fits into wider arts policy, nationally and internationally.

So why not a coherent, consistent arts policy that deals with wider issues? Pigs might fly. There are far too many vested interests with too much to gain from breaking  things down into bite-sized pieces so they can be consumed more easily. The NHS, the BBC, the transport infrastructure and much else were built up by public funds and commitment. Now they're morsels ripe for commercial cherry picking. The media, politicians and the public don't do joined-up thinking anymore, so no-one cares.  But there is a strong business case for supporting the ENO as part of the national arts industry. I've written about this many times  See HERE for example. 

So what's ahead for the ENO? First, we need to get away from the constant rehash of the same old canards, like the resignations of Martyn Rose and Henriette Götz. Neither of them were in their jobs long enough to have much impact.  Even before she joined the ENO, Götz was smart enough to walk away from a car crash before it happened.  Since the media don't actually do journalism anymore, they fall back on the same old  clichés. What is relevant about the Martyn Rose resignation was that he claimed that John Berry was "the problem not the solution". Just as in many organizations, internal feuds are part of the system, it's no big deal. Businesses don't always operate on purely business principle.  So the real question, now that Berry is gone, would be how that logic still stands. 

The rescue plan for the ENO predicates on piecemeal measures like turning the building into a café, which, frankly I don't think means a bean. Much wiser to use parts of the building not usually open to the public for corporate events and so on.  

The idea of cutting the orchestra and chorus is also short sighted. Savings would have to be offset against the impact on personnel. Musicians can't find work elsewhere because the summer hiatus happens all over the country.  Besides, musicians are the lifeblood of the company. Trash them and sacrifice what makes the company good.  The ENO hosts other performing enterprises, notably Russians ballet and some English National Ballet productions,  so it's not as though no income is coming in.

Then there's the Coliseum itself, the  biggest theatre in the West End , wonderfully situated in a perfect position   How commercial interests would just love to get a bite of that!  Booting the ENO out might be good for some, but it would cause further problems for the ENO.  It occupies the Coliseum under an agreement which means it doesn't pay commercial rent. If it went elsewhere, rents would escalate, while a less prime position would make it less convenient for visitors.  Higher costs, less sales? Not smart. In any cse, I'm not convinced that commercial interests could make the Coliseum pay, though they might think so.

Touring is also not an option. The projected production at the Old Vic in Bristol fell flat because it was too expensive.  Because the industry operates on a co-operative network, whereby different companies host each other's productions.  More could be done in this way, though. The ENO could become "Opera North London" or "Scottish Opera London" just as the Royal Opera House hosts outside work. The ENO did the WNO's Mastersingers of Nuremberg which to many was an even better experience, even without Terfel.  This kind of integration between houses benefits all and makes money. If only policy makers understood how the business works!

For 2013-2014, the ENO published a version of its accounts which showed an optimistic surplus (more here). Of course it's not a full account, but as a private company it's not required to open its books. So what is the basis of Arts Council England's savage cuts? Let someone else analyze that. I'm not paid to do investigative journalism – if such a thing still exists.  We don't have the figures either way, and have to go on Arts Council England's say-so.  But against the figures, whatever they may be, we need to balance them against wider considerations.  Success cannot be measured by crude things like bums on seats.  Closing the topmost gallery, for example, would instantly change occupancy stats. No-one goes there anyway.  The true value of the ENO lies in its place as an integral part of British cultural life,.Which is why we need a coherent national arts policy which addresses reality.

LATEST : In the Times, Raymond Gubbay has written a letter criticizing the ENO for not doing shows over Xmas shows, which is a bit unfair as other places eg the South Bank, don't do normal programming in this season.  Gubbay does shows at the Barbican at Xmas, and he and Classic FM use the Royal Albert Hall for shows of their own.  Even  more signifigantly, though, Peter Jonas, who was Chairman of the ENO when the Coliseum deal was done, reveals that, if the ENO were to be shut down, the Coliseum might revert to the Arts Council.  I can't quote the Times verbatim, but anyone who sunscribes can do so themselves.

Verdi's ironies : a thoughtful Force of Destiny, ENO

At the ENO Verdi The Force of Destiny last night someone remarked: "What pretty tunes! Why can't the show be cheery?" Perhaps that's the measure of audiences today, but, quite inadvertently, this stabbed through to the heart of what Verdi might have intended. The music in the Overture surges, as a screaming protest at La forza del destino - relentless fate - a folly which destroys individuals, families, whole nations.  Yet in the midst of this carnage, the Fate theme dances seductively. Is it a "pretty tune" or something disturbing?

Is Verdi telling us that appearances deceive?  The Marquis of Calatrava (Matthew Best) hates Don Alvaro with an irrational fury because Don Alvaro (Gwyn Hughes Jones)  is a half breed. Identities constantly change. Don Carlo (Anthony Michaels-Moore) impersonates a student. Don Alvaro becomes Friar Raffaello. Leonore (Tamara Wilson)  becomes a mysterious hermit but chooses a male monastery. Delusion dominates, not reason.  Don Carlo has been hunting a half breed for years but whern he meets his soldier friend, he doesn't notice ? So much for blind prejudice.  He's obsessed to psychotic extremes even though he doesn't actually know what really happened, or care enough to find out.  The monk, too, collude in delusion, too cowed to wonder why the hermit must be shielded. They're obeying orders. Like soldiers, like Don Carlo, like the racist Marquis, they get caught in the lockstep of doing as they're told, without thinking for themselves.

What is war itself, but delusion on a grand scale? Preziosilla (Rinat Shaham) isn't a simple
gypsy.   Her very first words are "Viva la guerra" . She whips the crowd into bloodthirsty frenzy. Yet as a war widow and a teller of fortunes, she ought to know better. She has a pretty name but a malevolent, almost demonic presence. Wars don't happen without folks like this.  Verdi didn't, I think, write the part to give a bit of tacky local colour. In la forza del destino, the delusions of society are complicit in its destruction.  Even the Church, which distributes alms but not the genuine piety that Jesus taught, "Love their neighbour as thyself". When Friar Melitone (Andrew Shore) tells a woman tthat she could solve her problems by having fewer children, he's being realistic. In Verdi's time, such sentiments would have been even close to blasphemy for they suggest that God doesn't control fate, butb that human beings have responsibility, too.  Melitone has a mellifluous name but it's not ironic like Preziosilla's. He is not a villain but the voice of reason. Suffering is wrong, it should upset us.

Calixto Bieito's La forza del destino is deeply perceptive because it addresses the fundamental forces whch shape what we might call destiny, but which might lie in the human psyche  and an almost Nietzschean will for evil. His Spanish Civil War references are relevant, though probably lost on English-speaking audiences. In any case, they're fairly generic. The focus remains on the Calatrava mania for mindless vendetta.   So we don't see Don Carlo stab Leonore ? She dies because she's caught up in the emotional barbed wire of the craziness around her. By sacrificing herself, she redeems Don Alvaro. Her actions thus break the cycle of selfish, obsessive hatred which has really destroyed the proud house of Calatrava.

The set, designed by Rebecca Ringst, is very effective - Spanish-style facades, seen in strange angles, their underpinning revealed. Video projections (Sarah Derendinger)  suggest what Don Alvaro,and Leonore might have been as children, developing their backstories more than the libretto does, but extend our appreciation of the characters. A little girl draws crazy circles with a mechanical hand: Leonore didn't love Don Alvaro enough to run from her father when she had the chance.

This ENO Force of Destiny moves on to the Met as La forza del destino, which is perhaps why it's fairly muted, and includes a cast of Americans and honorary Americans like Anthony Michaels-Moore. Tamara Wilson created the part of Leonore well, nice warm roundness in her voice, emphasizing the savagery of her fate. Gwyn Hughes Jones sang Don Carlo  even more persuasively. His voice is a treasure, and he has great acting skills, No surprise that he's an ENO favourite, and a reason why the ENO, with its programme of supporting singers with an English (or Welsh) background is to be welcomed. So Wilson and Hughes Jones are generously proportioned? So are their voices, which is what opera is about. It's theatre, the art of imagination, not legally binding documentary. In any case, the theme of feast and fasting runs throughout the opera. Leonore and her father are at dinner when he gets killed. Friar Melitone feeds the starving, though not enough to make them whole. In the monastery, Leonore and Don Alvaro pray and fast but they will not solve their problems until they find spiritual resolution.

If opera should merely be a collection of pretty tunes, then a drama about hate, war and madness  should merit pretty staging.  But Bieito's production deals with the drama and the irony that runs throughout.  Bieito's La Forza del Destino isn't pretty though it's not outrageous. But anyone genuinely interested in Verdi, and the ideas and emotions that motivated him, will do well to learn from this production.

ENO Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Shostakovich on mute

It took artistic courage to choose Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk to start the ENO's 2015-2016 season.  Shostakovich isn't an easy sell, and so full of sex and violence that some minds - like Josef Stalin - would be aghast. But Mark Wigglesworth is passionate about Shostakovich , and as new Music Director of the ENO, he's making a point. Good opera needs artistic vision.

Shostakovich's plot, derived from a short story by Nikolai Leskov, revolves around a frustrated young wife,  Katarina Lvovna (Patricia Racette) who is bored out of her mind in the house of the Ismailovs.  Dmitri Tcherniakov's staging shows her in a box, isolated from the world of business around her. It's a good concept, and solves practical logistical problems but doesn't vary much. In the final act, the box becomes a prison cell. Katarina's been in a cell all her married life, though once it was draped in fancy carpets. It's a valid concept, but unvarying, and doesn't quite capture the savage turbulence of a society where most people are trapped in some kind of emotional prison.  Boris Timofeyevich Ismailov (Robert Hayward), the head of the family, is a boor and a bully, who'd rape his daughter in law if he could.  Significantly, he's a rich man whose power means he can get away with anything, until he crosses Katarina.  The undercurrent of subversion that runs through Shostakovich's operas is integral to their meaning. Everyone is poisoned in a society based on power based on brutality. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, easily the finest of Shostakovich's many satirical operas, is much more than one woman's story.

Perhaps First Night nerves inhibited the performance of the first two acts. While Wigglesworth drew thoughtful playing from the ENO orchestra, the music didn't ignite until the last two acts, where Shostakovich wrote music so dramatic that it brought out the inner intensity of the opera far more vividly than the somewhat tentative staging. The off-stage brass weren't just for show. They operate as part of the audience, like voices in a crowd, whose comments might otherwise be suppressed. In these two acts, Wigglesworth made his mark.  The playing became violent and extreme, all inhibitions freed. It's not for nothing that the libretto keeps referring to alcohol, which stifles pain, but eventually breaks down social order. The all-important orchestral Interludes blazed with conviction, so well played that the nominal action on stage felt largely irrelevant. Had the singing been of the same standard, this would have been an evening of great music.

Unfortunately the ENO budget does not run high enough, and might shrink further, given the stranglehold of Arts Council England's "special measures". The best singers don't need to learn a role in English because their careers are international. Yet there is an increasingly strong case for opera in the vernacular. Now that most people know basic repertoire from recordings and DVDs, the experience of live opera is even more important. It adds extra perspective. When audiences hear opera in their own language, they can focus on the feelings and emotions behind the sounds. Opera in the vernacular is not a substitute for the original language but offers a different focus.  If the government of this country were serious about culture "for the people" it would recognize the value of the ENO,  the flagship for opera in English,. It's also a unique training source for singers whose native language is English. 

Much depends, however, on the quality of translation.  Some ENO translations have been brilliant, like The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and The Girl of the Golden West, which in English is even funnier than in Italian.  David Pountney's translation of Lady Macbeth of Mtensk matched the idea of crude banality which runs through the libretto,  but could have used more wit and bite.  Even this might have worked had the singing been of the high standards of the orchestral playing. Part of the reason lies in the Personregie or lack thereof.  The production premiered in Düsseldorf in 2008. It could use a re-charge.

Patrica Racette is an ENO favourite because she;'s a big name in the United States, an important market for the ENO. She sang Katya Kabanova five years ago.  At first, her voice didn't quite project through the stalls, so I don't know how it carried further up in the house. At moments, she rose to the challenge of a diffucult and demanding role, but generally the portrayal didn't capture the full  breadth of Katarina's personality. Since Tcherniakov's concept of the opera seems to focus on Katarina rather than the world around her, this put added pressure on Racette.

John Daszak sang Sergei, the handsome hunk who relieves Katarina's sexual frustration but ends up a victim like everyone else.  He certainly looks the part, and we get to see his behind (or more likely that of a body double).  He sings forcefully, and in the final act, creates a sense of genuine outrage. His seduction of Sonyetka (Clare Presland) is an act of violence against Katarina as much as pure animal lust. Nearly ten years ago, the Royal Opera House presented Lady Macbeth of Mtensk  with Eva Maria Westbroek and Christopher Ventris in the leading roles.  Those two had real chemistry together. They lit up the production (by Richard Jones) by the sheer committment of their singing. In Tcherniakov's staging, the copulation is simulated, routine rather than vocally dangerous with little erotic charge..

Quibbles aside, this Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was a good start to the ENO season. One hopes, though, that the vision that animated the ENO will once again return.

This review also appears in Opera Today.

More scalps? John Berry leaves ENO

More scalps for the mob? Once, opera was about art.  Now it seems that art is dictated by those who want to enforce their own fundamentalist agendas, not all of which are necessarily artistic. So John Berry has left the ENO after eight years in which the company has had many great successes, for example, Mastersingers,  Benvenuto Cellini,  Peter Grimes and much else. The ENO wins awards for artistic excellence but does that matter?  We hear over and over about Arts Council England singling out the ENO for savage cuts and placing the house under "special measures" but precious little in terms of actual facts and figures.We also hear the same old story about the departure of Martyn Rose and Henriette Gõtz, who wasn't in the job long enough to make an impact.  That's because, instead of well-informed investigation, we're blessed with cut-and-paste journalism.

It's a sad day for art.  I've no idea who will replace John Berry but I hope it will be someone with artistic vision who can defend the ENO and preserve its status. Please read my other articles on the place of the ENO in British cultural life.

ENO annual financial review 2013/14

Save the ENO : British culture and phoney class war

Radical rethink  ENO heritage

Opera houses and houses for opera 

and perhaps most pointed of all
Wagner's prescient Warning : Mastersingers of Nuremberg, ENO vindicated

ENO Tansy Davies Between Worlds

Tansy Davies Between Worlds at the ENO at the Barbican, London, confirms yet again the ENO's unique position in British cultural life.  Davies is a highly original, very distinctive composer. Between Worlds suggests great potential. It's her first venture into opera, building upon her orchestral style, interesting for that very reason. Everyone knows the events that took place on 9/11, so literal narrative would be crass.  We don't neeed to see planes crash. Many of the victims were trapped in darkness, not knowing what was happening outside. In Between Worlds, we get just that.  It's not an opera in the usual sense, but a meditation on the emotions people might have felt, lost in that claustrophobic limbo from which there was no way out but death.

Those who died trapped were ordinary human beings, facing an unimaginable trauma. Grand arias would be inappropriate. Real people don't play to the gallery, especially in such circumstances.  Bombastic gestures are for terrorists.  Davies concentrates instead on the fragile lines of communication between the inner and outer worlds:  phone connections that break up, messages that don't get through, signals that fail when they're most needed   In this opera, the orchestra sings what cannot be expressed. Wailing sounds suggesting sirens, creating anxiety, all the more disturbing because they sound muted and distant.  Ticking, tense mechanical sounds, beating staccato like the very pulse of the Earth.  A Birtwistle connection exists, though Davies's music, of course, sounds nothing like Birtwistle.  For me,  Tansy Davies's music has always felt sculptural,  as if she's working with physical, architectural forms.  In Between Worlds   she uses fragmentation: myriad tiny sounds that deliberately don't cohere, but en masse form vast walls. The Twin Towers were beautiful monuments of glass, defying the elements, but they couldn't withstand the attack. Those who remember 9/11 will recall the clouds of rubble and dust, waves of paper fluttering down from wrecked offices, and bodies falling, to be smashed into pieces. Listening to Between Worlds as a purely audio experience  will be an experience, As music, it's extraordinarily subtle.

Davies's vocal lines are stratospheric, reflecting  the idea of "looking upwards" to survive . This timbre causes probelms for many in the cast, apart from Andrew Watts, the Shaman, for whom a realm beyond mortal existence is normal territory. Although he's dressed in a business suit, his keening, legato seemed to float into space. Much of Manhattan was built by Native American construction workers, riding the girders way above the streets, turning empty nature into concrete. The Shaman is fantasy, of course, but brings a deeper level of meaning.  When Watts sings, one hears something of eternity, which fits in nicely with Davies's quotes from early music and hymn. The downside is that this stratospheric timbre is hell to sing.  Most of the rest of the cast is challenged.  Psychologically, this is true. The lines  break up frequently, like broken signals, and feel  like strangulated screams, words caught mid-flow in choking gasps.  Not at all easy on the ear, but perhaps it shouldn't be, in the circumstances. But focus on the music in the orchestra, conducted by Gerry Cornelius. This is an opera where abstract sounds tell the story, with beauty, dignity. and sensitive imagination. 

The stage is divided into three separate spheres. Andrew Watts, alone, at the very top, the chorus in darkened space below. In the centre, five key figures whose "ground" is perspex, and transparent, as if they're in suspended animation.  The figures are symbolic of Everyman, so there's no great need for in-depth characterization. It's enough for us to know that the Realtor (Clare Presland) has to divide her time between being a mother and an executive, and that the Younger Man  (William Morgan) is scared of heights: we feel for them as human beings.  The closest we get to conventional aria is when The Young Woman (Rhian Lois) sings of love. It's a wonderful vignette, celebrating lesbian choice -  good for librettist Nick Drake and Davies!  Eric Greene sings the Janitor, a role that sits more easily in range, Phillip Rhodes sings the Older Man, a relatively conventional figure.  Susan Bickley sings The Mother. Deborah Warner directed, Michael Levine designed the set, which underlined the fragility of being "between worlds".

Special mention should be made of the dance sequence towards the end, choreographed by Kim Brandstrup. A man's body floats helplessly suspended, supported gently by a sylph-like female dancer, in a kind of reverse pas de deux.  The image suggests vulnerability, as well as gentleness. Eventually the male figure flies upwards, finding release. The music behind this sequence is beautiful, expressing deep meaning without the use of words. What was striking about 9/11 was that those killed sent messages of love, not hate or revenge, but that, alas, has been lost in transmission in our more divided, violent times.

Between Worlds is so unusual that's it's bound to shake up some. It might take time to settle, I think it proves how much creativity and talent there is in Britain, and why it should be supported. The ENO is in a unique position because it supports original work in the English language, and does so with a quirky liveliness that appeals beyond the narrow confines that give opera  a false elitist image.Scrapping the ENO in favour of small-town runs of, say, The Barber of Seville, just doesn't make sense, long term. The ENO's contribution to British art cannot simply be measured in accountant-speak.
 

ENO Annual Review 2013/14

The English National Opera published its Annual Review this week. Surprise! Contrary to expectations, it's in the black!  Just. The year 2013/14 ended with an an unrestricted surplus of £208,000 following box office income of £9,684,000 across 117 performances (2012/13 = £9,678,000 across 132 performances). This represents a box office uplift of 11.4% per performance, and an increase in audience numbers of 11%. Download the annual review here  (It's not a line by line account)


A quick summary :

• Average audience capacity for ENO productions was 75% in the 2,358 seat London Coliseum
• 117 performances of 13 ENO productions, 8 new and 5 revivals, including 1 world premiere, 1 UK premiere and 3 operas by living composers (Sunken Garden, The Perfect American, Satyagraha)
• 201,361 audience members saw an ENO production at the London Coliseum or at the Barbican, with 70,000 attending for the first time
• 173,102 audience members saw an ENO production at one of our international co-producing partners. 11 productions opened around the world in 7 countries
• 302 performances of ENO shows took place in London and around the world 
• ENO is the world’s leading co-producer, having now worked with more than 35 opera companies and festivals globally
• ENO Screen was launched in February 2014 with the live broadcast of Peter Grimes. This screening was attended by over 15,000 audience members around the UK and Ireland and is the highest grossing UK screening ever of an opera by a British composer
• 88% of singers and conductors were British born, trained or resident
• A third of our tickets across the year were available for £30 or under, with prices starting at £5
• Over 57,000 tickets to an ENO performance sold at £25 or less
• 24,000 members of Access All Arias – a scheme for students and under-30s which offers significant ticket discounts. 2,833 Access All Arias tickets were purchased during 13/14 financial year
• Secret Seats was launched in 13/14 financial year - at least 50 seats available at every performance for £20 (sometimes situated in top price areas of the house). 4,441 Secret Seats were purchased
• 2,000 tickets were sold to Opera Undressed – a special scheme aimed at new opera-goers. 35% of attendees have returned to another production since coming to an Opera Undressed event
• 411,235 audience members attended one of 235 performances at the London Coliseum
• As well as ENO productions, the London Coliseum welcomed 13 visiting companies and productions and hosted the British Fashion Awards for the first time in December 2013
• 15 exceptionally talented British singers received bespoke training and development through ENO Harewood Artists
• 3,874 young people from 23 London State schools participated in ENO Opera Squad
• Over 1.8 million unique visitors to our website – representing year-on-year growth of 40%
• 93% growth in our Twitter followers, 65% growth in Facebook page likes
• Three productions broadcast on BBC Radio 3, reaching over 450,000 listeners

New CEO at ENO ? The questions

When the Arts Council England placed sanctions on the ENO, it said it wanted someone "qualifed" to take over as CEO.  So they've appointed Cressida Pollock. A good journalist would ask, who is she, and what can she bring to the job?  There isn't much on the net about her as she's relatively junior. Her Linked In profile: Four jobs in 5 years -  with gaps - one of them as Summer Associate and two running parallel.  Even Henriette Gõtz  had more relevant background.  It's not paramount that the incumbent should have arts experience, but it  would help as long as they can demonstrate dedication and leadership. Age, too isn't necessarily a problem (Pollock is 32), but this is a job that involves political machination as well as financial acumen.  Maybe Pollock is a genius, but the challenges facing the ENO are so great that it would take someone truly amazing to sort them out.  Unfortunately the press are supine, regurgitating press releases instead of asking questions. What is really going on?

Opera Houses and Houses for Opera

Imagine an opera house lilke this on the banks of the Thames. It's the home of the Valencia Opera,  designed by Dr Santiago Calatrava, completed in 2007. It's so beautiful that perhaps it should be part of the international opera circuit. But what really makes a house is what happens inside. In the current non-debate about the ENO there have been calls to turn it into a trendy café or to scrap the building altogether. Are things that easy ?

Firstly, the deal with which the ENO occupies the Coliseum means that it doesn't have to pay commercial West End rents. It might move somewhere less convenient, thereby driving away part of the audience, changing its demographic, which has a knock-on effect on what it does, artistically.  Even if an alternative place could be found, there's no guarantee that the Coliseum could be sold profitably enough at short notice to make the transition worthwhile. Though, quite possibly, there are those who would welcome the chance to profit from a bargain, if such a sale were forced.  Not good for ENO, though.

Second what you see upfront in an opera house is only the surface: backstage is a warren of workshops, rehearsal rooms, technical support, dressing areas etc. Which is why most houses outsource so much to other premises.  Part of the ENO business plan is to consolidate this support in one area, but that might be asking too much.  Thirdly, the Coliseum is the largest theatre in London, and never easy to fill.  Most West End theatres are significantly smaller, and most shows don't run into profit unless they've been going on a long time. Do we really want a single opera to run for months, exactly the same every night  How would that affect singers and players?  At the other end of the scale, what about the Raymond Gubbay route, filling the Royal Albert Hall with water to do Madame Butterfly for people who don't actually like music but want a good night out.  Which is fair enough, but art it ain't.  The ENO can't really move back to Sadler's Wells, which is way too small. Shows may sell out in small spaces but so what if the overall take is reduced? Quality cannot be judged by capacity figures alone.

Perhaps the elephant in the room is, after all, changing audiences. The last ten years have seen a disintegration of the values of tolerance and openness. Where once some could preach "the End of History", now we're plagued by ignorance, bigotry and fundamentalism of all kinds.  Once, mature thinking came gradually, through a process of listening and learning. Now anyone can be an instant expert  thanks to Google and mass media.  So maybe the battle for the arts is already lost.

HERE is a link to an informative article in the Economist about opera as a business. Opera houses operate in co-operation with each other.  Scrapping one house impacts on the whole industry, worldwide.  Much of the current non-debate focuses on micro issues, like not liking a composer, or details of particular productions, when what we really need is an appreciation of how the business works. A few weeks ago, I addressed some of the issues here, in my article "Radical Rethink".

Save the ENO : British culture and phoney class war

The Arts Council England has announced that it's placing the ENO in a "special funding arrangement" and removing it from the portfolio of national organizations given a place at the funding table. Within that two-year period, the ENO will have to present accounts on a monthly baisis and meet milestones set by the ACE, in return for a short-term £I million grant to repair the rumoured shortfall in this year's budget. That there is a shortfall is hardly surprising as the ENO's new business model has yet to kick in.  On the surface, this looks simple enough that some observers think the ENO is "saved".  It's an irony that the ENO is housed in a building called the Coliseum. Photo above shows the sacking of Rome, by the Visigoths.

The ENO has never been a money cow. The primary purpose of any arts organization is to produce good art. Even the ACE acknowledges the role the ENO has played with groundbreaking work. But good art means taking risks: no arts organization is foolproof. For every Satyagraha, Peter Grimes or Mastersingers  there are bound to be some flops, just as everywhere else. That's the nature of the business. I don't hold much hope for aspects of the new business plan which predicate on duplicating what the West End already provides, ie smart cafés. One thing the ENO's critics miss entirely is that all opera companies these days operate in connection with each other, nationally and internationally. Scrapping the ENO would have a drastic knock-on effect on the rest of the industry. The loss of the ENO would create such a huge hole in the business that it would take more than a few million to fix.  The ACE, and the government, needs to think long term, and on a wider scale. Read more about what I've written on the interconnectedness of the industry HERE.

Far too much emphasis has been placed on the recent resignations. Henriette Gõtz was a lovely person but not experienced enough to deal with the scale of the problems the company faces, which go back way before she was even born. Strangely,  part of the ACE measures is to look for a "qualified" Executive Director, which is a bit rich,  given that the ACE is itself headed from Classic FM whose claim to wider arts policy nous lies in suggesting the formation of education "hubs". Or a Head of BBC Radio 3 with no broadcasting experience. Obviously education is part of arts policy, but only as an adjunct: it can't replace the wider context of arts education in schools and adult education. Yet the interim ENO Executive  Director is a man probably better placed than anyone else to solve problems  Anthony Whitworth-Jones (more HERE) oversaw the new building at Glyndebourne and came to the rescue of Garsington Opera when Leonard Ingram died. Look at Garsington Opera now.  Whitworth-Jones also wasn't part of the turbulence that hit the ENO three years ago, so he carries no baggage. If the ACE sincerely wants to set the ENO on a good footing, they'd be wise to back someone who just might, against all odds, be able to do the job.

There are some who'd like to replace tha arts altogether with, for example, performance theatre. That kind of writing is to journalism what busking is to grand opera.  Fact is, the arts are an important  part of this nation's economy.  London is a critical player in the world arts network, bringing in unquantifiable cultural and foreign policy influence. It's not clever to scrap the nation's patrimony simply because Harriet Harman's constituents don't go the the ROH (read more HERE). Everyone in this country has a stake in the continued health of the arts, whether they're directly involved or not.  The ENO has a unique place because it connects to English theatre tradition, from Purcell and Handel to Philip Glass and more. It's also championed British opera, which strictly speaking didn't exist before Benjamin Britten. It's also a springboard for nurturing English-speaking singers, some of whom, like Stuart Skelton and Iain Paterson, have developed international careers. Scrap that and it would cost a whole lot more to fix the mess the industry would then be in.  So what if only a minority enjoy the arts? Only a minority work in the banking system, so should we stop propping it up? If we were to support things with mass appeal,  maybe the state should be funding pornography. Some have been known to claim that on expenses.
 
But does the ACE, and whatever government that supports it, really want to save the ENO. The current ACE policy was set up under the last administration, but the present government has endorsed it without demur. It doesn't matter that much whether a Minister of Culture  like Sajid Javid, should be a luvvie. What really matters is whether he has a sensible business head (in which case being a luvvie is a disadvantage). The fundamental problem is that the arts do attract votes. Thus it's tempting for politicians like Harriet Harman to use the arts as a weapon of class war.

Unfortunately whipping up class hatred against the perceived "elitism" of the arts grabs headlines, and feeds resentment. There will always be thousands more who think that the arts don't matter because they don't participate. There's infinitely more mileage in stirring up class resentment than in explaining the wider role of the arts in the economy. The ACE's anti-London bias is part of this Phoney Class War. London dominates the UK because it's big, demographically and economically.  Downgrading London arts funding won't do anything to redress that balance. But "regionalism" buys votes, especially if it comes in the form of big capital projects where everyone benefits, except artists. Never forget the Sheffield National Centre for Popular Culture which looked PC but fell flat. No-one advocates London because the constituency for the arts is spread too thinly. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is far too busy with his pet Olympics project, which the government has funded to the tune of £141 million, which only marginally impacts on the realities of performance. For that kind of money, one could do a lot for the rest of London arts.

 The arts have become a pawn in the dismantling of this nation's heritage. Once, schools had decent music and arts programmes.  Arts organizations are expected to do the work schools used to do. Obviously, some form of "education" is essential but we need to rethink the whole concept of arts education. Instead, we have an arts policy that stakes so much on the need to replace that shortfall in basic arts education by forcing arts organizations to take up the slack, to the detriment of their primary purpose, which is to create art.  Instead of creation, we now have  a navel-gazing tick-box mentality, based on meeting targets instead of creativity.  There's also a lot more to arts education than teaching people what to think, like the ludicrous "Ten Pieces" programme. Some of these projects work counter-productively, reinforcing the notion that the arts are unapproachable. We can't expect the arts to carry the burden of changing a society when what causes inequality stems from something much more fundamental.

 But do politicians really care?  Or is chasing the short-term vote more fruitful?   Britain is now infinitely more diverse than in the old cloth-cap tribalism of class war. People of all classes and ethnic backgrounds are relatively upwardly mobile and aspirational. That's where the future really lies. A potential renaissance of the arts, if intelligently addressed, and not in the patronizing way it's done at present, where the emphasis is on dumbing down, not smarting up. Heed the prescient warnings of Hans Sachs! A society without culture falls apart. (Read more here.)

ENO Vindicated - Mastersingers of Nuremberg : Wagner's prescient warning

In Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wagner affirms the importance of the arts in forging cultural identity. This The Mastersingers of Nuremberg at the Coliseum is a timely reminder why the ENO is vital to the creative health of this nation. For Hans Sachs, the arts are an essential part of the identity of his beloved city. Get to this production, which runs until 8th March, if you care about the arts in London.

It is a rare privilege to catch this production, which hasn't been revived since it was first produced by Welsh Natiional Opera in 2010. It was a vehicle for Bryn Terfel, who five years ago was new to the role. (Read my review here.)  The ENO budget doesn't run to Terfel,  who, in any case is busy with Der fliegende Holländer (more here). But it does the next best thing, by bringing Iain Paterson back to this country. Paterson is one of the Wagner singers of choice these days,  but in the early stages of his career he was a company principal at the ENO.  His first fully staged Hans Sachs is a triumphal home-coming. Paterson's characterization of Hans Sachs is refreshingly individual. There's no reason why Sachs should be an old man past his prime. Forty-something  Paterson makes us feel Sachs as a strong and vigorous man who stands up for his principles. In the Act III scene where Sachs encourages Walter, Patterson conveys genuine empathy, showing how maturity is a continuum, a constant process of learning and sharing.  When Paterson sings "Mad, mad, eveything's mad" (Wahn! Überall Wahn), he suggests the way a man of Sachs's wisdom might feel in  a world where basic human values are going awry: ineffably moving. One day, Paterson will be an outstanding Sachs. Hear him now at the ENO, so you can remember his staged debut. 

Gwyn Hughes Jones is an impressive Walter von Stolzing. Although he needs to work on the very top of his range, overall he has an interesting and very fresh voice. He starts singing the Prize Song lying flat on his back,  a handicap  which I think must be deliberate because it's one of the worst positions to sing in,  but his innate lyricism wins over. This Prize Song was illuminated by sincerity, flowing naturally with unforced freedom. Also very impressive was Nicky Spence's David, vibrant, cheeky and irrepressible. Sachs gives David a hard time, but nurtures him so he, too, will take his place as a master craftsman. The significance of apprentices in this opera cannot have been missed by the chorus, not all of whom are young, but who provide firm support., The ENO chorus is excellent. Even those who weren't part of the Harewood scheme seem galvanized by its ideals. The ENO is a great house for developing the singers of the future, providing a unique springboard for English-speaking talent in a business where most work isn't in their native language. Even the relatively small but crucial role of the Night Watchman (Nicholas Crawley) was well delivered, though his costume tried to steal the show.

Andrew Shore sang Sixtus Beckmesser, portrayed in this production as venal rather than evil. Rachel Nicholls made her ENO debut as Eva. She's very young indeed, creating Eva with more enthusiasm than refinement, which fits the part fine. Madeleine Shaw sang Magdalene. The Mastersingers were James Creswell, David Stout (very good), Peter van Hulle, Quentin Hayes, Timothy Robinson, Nicholas Folwell, Richard Roberts, Stephen Rooke, Roderick Earle and Jonathan Lemalu.

Richard Jones's productions, designed here by Paul Steinberg, are bright and upbeat, perfect for comedy, but Jones's work is almost invariably even more astute about music and meaning. The Mastersingers wear identikit uniforms,  the apprentices snappily marching about with the paraphernalia of office. I loved the the giant pretzels, representing the baker's guild. Significantly, Jones doesn't portray the townsfolk as automatons. Buki Schiff's costumes range over a 500-year period, and cover different regional styles and social classes. The mastersingers aren't the only ones who uphold "Holy German Art" : without this community of individuals, Nuremberg might not thrive as it did. For "Holy German Art" flourishes in many forms. The frontcloth shows a montage of German thinkers from Sachs's time to the present. You don't need to identify them all. As in the opera, part of the fun comes from learning afresh.

Sachs's Nuremberg was prosperous, but the Midsummer festival commemorates times of war and famine. The townsfolk go to bed on Midsummer's Eve, but it doesn't take much to rouse them to riot.  As if released by devilry, they swarm over the stage, their arms raised in diagonal salute.  If nice, supposedly artistic people can mindlessly destroy what they have, we cannot be complacent. Beckmesser very nearly got the Mastersingers to kick Walter out of town. Were it not for Hans Sachs and his non-conformist wisdom, where would Walter be, or Nuremberg, or the future of art ? This Mastersingers of Nuremberg at the ENO  gives much fuel for thought.

Please also read my other posts on Wagner, Die Meistersinger, stagecraft etc.  Also, my post on the current situation at the ENO "Radical Rethink". Unlike some, I think it's sickening to "enjoy" seeing people kicked when they are down.

photos : Catherine Ashmore