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Just in: ENO replaces autumn season with 10 weeks of Hairpsray

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norman lebrecht

April 03, 2020

The English National Opera might as well drop the last word in its name. This is not the end of a new beginning.

Round-robin from Michelle Williams, head of casting:

Dear Friends and Colleagues

I hope that you and your loved ones are well and safe.

Today it will be announced that Hairspray, which had been due to open at the London Coliseum on 23 April, will now be opening at the start of September for a run of ten weeks.

Inevitably, this has an impact on our planned season here at English National Opera.

As you know, we stage musicals at the London Coliseum in order to help us fund as much opera as possible. This income is of even more importance due to our current closure. This announcement will therefore be made today for those who had already purchased a ticket for the musical.

We are keen to reassure you that staging opera is still ENO’s main priority. We are working hard to create a new season of work both at the London Coliseum but also in other venues across London and the UK. We hope to have further details in due course, and are extremely sorry for any worry or frustration caused by delay in hearing from us.

To aid us in this planning process, it would be useful if you could share your availability from 1 August to 20 December 2020.

Like us, we expect many other opera companies are currently remodeling their upcoming seasons. If your artist receives an enquiry but is currently contracted to ENO, please do get in touch before you decline the offer as it may be possible for us to release them.

For now we wanted to ensure that you heard the news about Hairspray’s new dates from us first. Thank you for your continued patience and we will be in touch again as soon as we can.

Due to the nature of this announcement and given the current circumstances we hope you understand that this email has been sent to all artists and agents directly

We hope you continue to stay safe, and I will be intouch with more information soon.