The death of ENO has been long postponed
OperaIn my latest essay for The Critic, I argue that English National Opera died long ago for lack of a clear identity. It achieved great things against overwheling odds. But even if its state defunding is modified or reversed, the company cannot last much longer in its present form. It is an opera company that lost the plot. Just read the history:
One morning half a lifetime ago I was sitting in a garret office at the London Coliseum listening to the Queen’s cousin tell me what the public really wanted. The Earl of Harewood – George, when you got to know him better – was managing director of English National Opera from 1972 to 1985.
Neither he, nor anyone else, saw any kind of conflict between the ‘people’s opera’ being run by a king’s grandson, an Earl with a vast estate in Yorkshire. This was by no means the weirdest of a catalogue of anomalies and amateurisms that has now led to the defunding of London’s second opera house. Before long, ENO will be taught in college as a model in how not to make an opera…
…Did it have to die? The cause of death is a prolonged failure to address reality. Take opera in English, a founding act of faith. In the vast Coliseum the words were hard to hear, so surtitles were screened above the stage. We faced a Brobdingnagian drama of a Lithuanian tenor mangling Verdi in foreign tongue while a trendy translation flashed above our eyelines…
Read on here.
press photo: Tristram Kenton/ENO
Give Geoge Harewood his due, he knew his stuff and gave the company a great fillip.
And started Opera North, aka ENO North in 1978.
Along with David Lloyd-Jones
Quite. One M. Callas found him highly knowledgeable about opera.
I don’t see why GH should be marked down because of his ancestry, although it was a bit weird to see the very image of George V brought to life and holding forth on ENO first nights.
George Harewood certainly knew his stuff, as he should have being the editor of Kobbe’s Complete Opera Book to say nothing of his experience running the Edinburgh Festival. Yet it was he who appointed Pountney, the first of the triumvirate that followed his years with Mackerras. Much lauded – rightly – we should not forget that this group did radically change the production style and all but introduced regie theater to repertory opera in the UK.
An excellent article, Norman. I am appalled that people are targeting Nick Serota and the ACE – who are painfully doing the right thing – and not examining the lies that Stuart Murphy and Dr. Brunjes are peddling to the UK press. A national opera review? Claiming their worth due to ENO Breathe and some free tickets to youth – which were not all taken up, I understand from insiders? Or Murphy’s deeply offensive use of the word Diversity – publicly counting and parading we BAME artists like tokens at his twinkling white arcade? Are these truly valid reasons to continue funding ENO, and under these two corrupt leaders? What about the highest quality of international musical and artistic standards, as Berry and Gardner did maintain? What about innovation of the art form as the ACE are rightfully suggesting must happen to create new opera audiences – enough of these safe, quaint productions for the elderly whose pocket books get erect at the very mention of … Richard Jones? Instead of bashing the ACE, who were forced to make very hard choices (like us all in the modern economy) what we have now is two petulant men fighting to save their reputations, not ENO. The simple truth is that they have both failed, over 4, 8 years – to create any worthy vision for ENO. Give the building to the ROH to play its commercial hits at lower prices, or give the building to Sonia Friedman or Nika Burns or Cam Mac or ALW to turn a profit with musicals. And someone please hold the CEO and Chairman accountable for their shared failure – not the poor ACE who are doing their best in a nightmare situation for us all.
A splendid article, but may I offer a serious disagreement?
The Coli’s acoustics were/are not great, but in the 70s/early 80s, I had little trouble understanding the diction. My financial circumstances improved over that period, so I sat in increasingly expensive seats and, wherever I sat, I always got a clear understanding of what was being sung.
Surtitles were mandated by the declining attention to diction, rather than the Coli’s acoustics. Once they were introduced, diction quality decined even further – presumably it was felt to be less significant.
I suspect that future historians will regard this as the tipping point in the ENO tragedy.
It is a tragedy. Lillian Bayliss had an inspired vision, which SWO/ENO fulfilled magnificently until the management lost the plot.
Baylis. One ‘s’ please
George Harwood was of his time and did much to move ENO on. But that was then and we are now at a totally different time. A wealth of largely indifferent talent has filled in since then leading to the present shambles of Brunjes and Murphy. ACE may not have handled things very well but they’ve a rrsponsibility to allocate grants as they feel appropriate. ENO has had enough chances over the past fifteen or so years. What’s happened is sad but let’s move on.
The ENO was labeled the “people’s opera” too? Across the Atlantic, the same phenomenon occurred, but over a decade later.
New York City Opera: “The opera company, dubbed “the people’s opera” by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943.”
In today’s era, an opera company that features rap music may be just what the doctor ordered. I’m not sure if that’s sarcasm or not.
How did the switch to Regietheater affect attendance?
NL, every time you post a photo of ENO’s current Wotan in that ludicrous anorak, I start to gnash my teeth. Here’s an alternative…
https://bit.ly/BaileyHunter
I find the argument that the necessity for surtitles in the Coliseum was in any way a contributory factor to some sort of ‘dumbing down’ of opera and a factor in ENO’s demise quite ridiculous. I have been to many operas this year in S France and – even at Aix-en-Prov – and in the smallest of theatres – same language surtitles are common.
ENO has had its ups and downs – as has the ROH – but it’s never had the corporate backing. This philistine goverment – via ACE – has simply chosen the convenient time to indulge in penny pinching and artistic snobbery. No-one seems to mention the time when ROH was mooted to set up an out-post in Manchester – Colin Davis was at the helm. What an uproar! The plan was ditched when artists realised they might have to spend time ‘up north’. Plus ca change.
Everyone in the industry I speak with in London immediately says, “Well, no surprise: it was time to go. No great loss in fact.” These are the same people who publicly “support” ENO. I think we all know it’s second rate everything at ENO, and I truly don’t mean that as an insult: but it’s really just average opera. We go to the ROH for the highest standards across the boards. And while we love ENO in that way Brits love any eccentric little thing, I think we have to face the larger needs of the economy and the new world we are all entering. Saving ENO is not a huge priority right now. Nick Serota and the ACE are doing the hard but right thing for the moment. A new ENO can be reborn one day – but not at the Coliseum, not in English, and with an all new Board and team from top to bottom. Sometimes something must die to be reborn.
Read the whole article, but still can’t quite tell whether Norman thinks the ENO’s vision failure was chasing trendiness or not chasing it hard enough.