Breaking: Bucharest reinstates opera and ballet chiefs, fires nationalist boss

We understand that the crusading interim manager, Tiberiu Soare, has left Bucharest National Opera with immediate effect.

Johan Kobborg is back as director of ballet and George Călin as head of opera.

There has been no official confirmation yet. A statement is expected later today.

UPDATE: Călin’s restoration is temporary, until the end of the season. Soare is not going quietly. His supporters are demonstrating at the rear of the opera house and threatening to call a strike.

Kobborg says: ‘Thank you to all that supported in this difficult time. This quickly became so much more than just about me being there or not, and that is the reason why I didn’t leave straight away, as I and ‘we’ could not allow for this institution to go back to how it used to function, for the sake of the artists and for the sake of the future of Romanian culture life.

‘Rightness has prevailed, and not only that, much more then that! It is the beginning of reform, and ONB might soon be the benchmark for the better of other Romanian institutions as well.

‘I came to ONB because of good people, and would only ever leave ONB in the hands of other good people. So until that day comes, I am very much here and very much BACK! Damage has been done, but will rebuild and continue what we started with even more passion. Now I will leave the politics behind, and go back to what I live for. Art.’