Covent Garden appoints commissioning director
OperaThe Royal Opera has created a new post of associate director for Netia Jones.
She will take charge of the indeterminate Linbury Theatre and share responsibility with Oliver Mears for commissioning new work in the main house. She starts work next week.
Jones is director of Transition, a multimedia performance group and Lightmap, a mixed media partnership. She saysL ‘I am delighted to join Oliver Mears and the Company. The Linbury Theatre is the perfect space to explore new technologies, to forge global connections and to reflect the artistic ambition of this exceptional Company. I look forward to working with the team on developing a programme of work that expands the boundaries of what this unlimited and unstoppable art form can be.’
The complaint most commonly expressed when speaking to members of opera audiences today is the poor quality of the singing in major houses. This should be the first thing to be fixed.
‘…. exploring new technologies…. expanding boundaries….. unlimited and unstoppable art form….’ all of this sounds like describing the outside of the art form, and not the content. Also it has the ring of early 20C modernism: away from tradition, away from what we know, exploring new territory. Meanwhile we know to which results that way of thinking has led opera.
Sounds interesting. I look forwards to experiencing the best at the Linbury.
Please could someone tell me where the Royal Opera found the money to pay for this new role, and surely it’s not necessary? What is their Director of Opera (Oliver Mears) doing all day? They have a casting director, so Mears isn’t casting operas – which we all know is time consuming… he directs his own lacklustre productions more often than should be allowed (why do the board not stop this?) on that great stage? So why isn’t he curating and running the Linbury as well? And in terms of new commissions – again, why can Mears not head up this also? Isn’t it his remit? While I don’t know that much about running a theatre of this size, I do know that any organisation in Financial trouble shouldn’t be wasting money paying another administrator to do the work of someone who is already in place and who should be doing it!
He’s been a joke appointment from day one. Their top three choices said no, so they went with a Puppet Boy. It’s humiliating internationally, as not one other opera house takes him seriously. Alex Beard clearly enjoys the youthful image and total control. Pappano wanted no one to challenge his last few years. So we are left with a visionless Royal Opera (and flourishing Royal Ballet). Poor London. Netia Jones is smart but hardly a thriving dynamic choice at Puppet Boy’s side. Her directing career has been sporadic and largely mediocre, to be polite. What a yawn of a tag team doing one person’s job at a time when downsizing is the need. Can we petition them not to renew Mears? He’s also the most bland human I have ever met in person: he inspired me to withdraw my financial support at ROH (ballet!). The Carissma Uniqueness Nerve and Talent of a mannequin.
another waste of money – they might end up like the MET and already struggling to sell – not even Hoffmann
I understand every separate word in this announcement, but I haven’t the faintest idea what they mean when assembled in this way. It reminds me of the famous Eric Morecombe quip:’I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order’ – or, perhaps, the observation of Lady Saphir in ‘Patience’: ‘Nonsense, yes, perhaps – but oh, what precious nonsense!’.
…oh, and what has not yet been reported here (and maybe NL could follow up with this) is what salary she will be receiving and, even more importantly, what were the pre-requisite requirements for the candidates for this position and what is the job description? Is it just a euphemism for ‘Diversity Officer’? Is this just a Stenning alter ego?
The attempt is obviously to bring some new life, some new ideas into the opera house, something better reflecting modern times, so: technology, sensational effects. Not some people standing on a stage singing, and a group of players below in a pit sawing and blowing on their instruments. In itself it is not so strange a longing, for Wagner already devised an opera theatre where he tried – with the most modern technique of his time – to make the stage happenings more mysterious and dreamlike, also through covering the pit – reducing the sense of material reality.
A happy achievement has been reached with turning an opera entirely into something happening within a virtual space, without theatre: Christian Chaudet’s marvellous film version of Stravinsky’s ‘Le Rossignol’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZJ_xamX1M
Arts Council England just laughed and laughed when she talked about “this unlimited and unstoppable art form.”
Until a few years ago there was something called ‘ROH2’, which comprised more or less everything not on the main stage. Deborah Bull ran it at one time. Then, around 10 years ago, the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet between them took responsibility for everything in the entire house: a welcome step, since work in the Linbury, the Clore Studio, etc was no longer automatically seen as second-tier. This appointment seems to risk a retrograde step back to those ROH2 days.
What a shocking waste of money on both Oliver Mears and now Netia Jones. Total ineptitude for one job, now requiring two unqualified people. Is Mears really so overwhelmed? Or incapable of his rather easy job! (Indeed, casting does the bulk of the work; all the man has to do is select a few classic titles for the main house and choose from the greatest directors on earth – into which he embarrassingly inserts himself, poor lamb.). It only makes me feel more sad for ENO who can barely afford a cup of tea. Shame on the ROH Board for approving any such position in such hard times. If you want a powerful female on the team, then get rid of Mears. Waste of space, he is. Nevermind his laughable productions. And when did Netia Jones become a fountain of new work? Beth Morrison would have been a thrilling appointment and highly qualified. This is just political posing and another waste of money. Alex Beard, wake up.
Most opera goers, even in Europe and the UK go to the opera to be entertained with great singing, great music they can take with them and great sets and costumes. They do not go to the major theatres to be vocally and musically challenged with mediocre singing, less than mediocre music and projections on a blank stage. Time to stop all of this nonesense, gimmick productions and bring what the audiences want back. They can go to smaller theatres for the experimental junque and absurdities.
“…the perfect space to explore new technologies, to forge global connections and to reflect the artistic ambition of this exceptional Company. I look forward to working with the team on developing a programme of work that expands the boundaries of what this unlimited and unstoppable art form can be.” Sounds like office-speak to me. These technocrat/CEO/admin types are paid big sums, and are full of it. The trouble is, these people really believe their own BS. I agree with Sanity/Granula17 comments below. Heaven help us all.
Time for the board to terminate Mears and Co at ROH. The place is broke, so let’s hire another dull choice to help him do his job as he’s run out of ideas.
His productions are mind numbingly dull and audiences don’t come. His mission is to kill their classic productions so he can cherry pick top opera’s that he proceeds mount without opposition. He gets paid to shoddily direct them and paid again to revive them and paid while he works elsewhere.This is a total conflict of interest. The place needs an artistic director who does not direct and has the ROH interest at heart. Not his monumental ego or a gnomes pocket. Bet you can’t wait for his forthcoming Tosca? The current one is fine, fills and attractive to look at, so let’s kill it. The man is surrounded by nodding idiots and Alex Beard is top of the list. Time for an urgent clear out at Covent Garden. Board take note.
A lot of talk then they end up with the usual minimalist or bad tonal crab.
Oh dear yet another sad person appointed to prop up Mears because he is clueless. Since taking up residence at ROH Oliver Mears (aka The Poison Dwarf) has managed to alienate some of operas biggest names and presided over the exodus of talent from the building so that all that’s left is a husk of its former greatness. Nobody is buying tickets because the programming is so dull, can the board not see this. Where is some new McVicar? Instead we get some other grey monstrosity staged for a fiver but asked to pay £250+ for the privilege or worse, some cast off idea from Kosky.
The man needs to vanish and fast taking his coterie and his awful productions with him.
Best thing to do with these two is lump them together with the CEO from CBSO and set them afloat somewhere in a boat to nowhere. How all these people get these jobs is beyond me.