Editor’s Note Front of House www.operanow.co.uk www.operanow.co.uk EDITORIAL Phone +44 (0)20 7333 1701 Email opera.now@markallengroup.com Editor-in-Chief Ashutosh Khandekar Associate Editor Helena Matheopoulos Consultant Editor Keith Clarke Contributing Editors Francis Muzzu, Tom Sutcliffe Robert Thicknesse (UK), Francis Carlin (France), James Imam (Italy), Karyl Charna Lynn (USA), Andrew Mellor (Scandinavia), Ken Smith (Far East) Design Louise Wood, Rosalind Howard ADVERTISING Phone +44 (0)20 7333 1716 Title Manager Liam-Rhys Jones, liam.jones@markallengroup.com Advertising Production Daniela DiPadova, +44 (0)20 7333 1727, daniela.dipadova@markallengroup.com SUBSCRIPTIONS AND BACK ISSUES Phone UK 0800 137201 Overseas +44(0)1722 716997 Email subscriptions@markallengroup.com Subscriptions Manager Bethany Foy UK Subscription Rate £80 PUBLISHING Phone +44(0)20 7738 5454 Publishing Director Owen Mortimer Marketing & Events Director Tony Hill Head of Marketing John Barnett Group Institutional Sales Manager Jas Atwal Production Director Richard Hamshere Circulation Director Sally Boettcher Managing Director Paul Geoghegan Chief Executive O cer Ben Allen Chairman Mark Allen Part of www.markallengroup.com OperaNow, ISSN 0958-501X, (USPS 9346) is published monthly by MA Music, Leisure & Travel Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, United Kingdom. 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The presence of advertisements in Opera Now implies no endorsement of the products or services offered. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of statements in this magazine but we cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors, or an advertiser not completing their contract. We have made every effort to secure permission to use copyright material. Where material has been used inadvertently or we have been unable to trace the copyright owner, acknowledgement will be made in a future issue. Please read our privacy policy by visiting http://privacypolicy. markallengroup.com. This will explain how we process, use and safeguard your data. Printed in the UK by Pensord, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood, NP12 2YA Newstrade distribution by Seymour 020 7429 4000 www.operanow.co.uk A national treasure? English National Opera in its heyday in the 1990s promoted itself with the slogan ‘Everyone Needs Opera’. Today, the question that hangs in the air seems to be ‘Do we need ENO?’ The Arts Council’s withdrawal of its annual grant for ENO in its latest round of funding makes the company unsustainable in its current form. ENO has always been British opera’s ‘di cult child’, expensive to run in its huge Edwardian home at the Coliseum, with a USP of ‘opera sung in English’ that once spoke of greater access, but has increasingly felt irrelevant and parochial. For years, the ENO’s role as London’s second large-scale opera house has been questioned by successive governments. In the 1990s, there was talk of a merger with the Royal Opera House to create a ‘superhub’ for opera in the British capital. That idea never took flight. In more recent years, ENO was placed under ‘special measures’ while it got its finances in order. After bothering with all that, the Arts Council seems to have thrown its hands in the air and given up. Can London sustain two large-scale opera companies? It would be an indictment of cultural life in Britain if the answer were to be a categorical ‘No’. Paris, with a quarter of the population of urban London, has five major opera theatres in its centre (not including Versailles with its magnificent Baroque theatre). Berlin, at two-thirds of London’s population, has three major companies located centrally with a host of smaller outfits providing opera at every scale and price. In truth, London has a rich operatic life that isn’t always acknowledged as part of the city’s core offering. Through the summer months, Opera Holland Park provides a hearty diet of performances showcasing superb young artists in the heart of the city. Within easy reach of London, to the south and north, are Grange Park Opera and Garsington Opera. English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire, Hampstead Garden Opera, fringe productions at Wilton’s Music Hall and Grimeborn Festival are part of a rich offering of medium- and small-scale opera at affordable prices that has, to a large extent, eclipsed the demotic mission that Lilian Baylis set out for a national English opera company in the 1930s. Does London need English National Opera? In its current form perhaps not. The company has never felt comfortable its skin, and even at the height of its artistic powers, it never has managed to make its books add up. Does Britain need English National Opera? Well, that question deserves to be answered with a resounding ‘Yes’. The next three years will be crucial as the company undergoes a process of selfexamination in a quest to become an opera company that embraces fully its aims to provide excellence, opportunity and innovation across a properly national reach. Ashutosh Khandekar @operanow fb.com/operanow Opera Now captures the drama, colour and vitality of one of the most powerful of all the performing arts. In our print and digital issues, we showcase the creative spirit of opera, both on stage and behind the scenes, with profiles of opera companies, singers, directors and designers. Our in-depth features reflect how diverse cultural elements have influenced opera, including travel, history, literature, art, architecture, politics and philosophy. Our lively reviews and opinion pages are a platform for writers and critics drawn from all over the world. Our aim is to inspire our opera-loving readers to broaden their knowledge and deepen their passion for this fascinating and stimulating artform. OperaNow December 2022 5