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Comment 'I have been visiting Covent Garden since 1910, but at present am very disappointed. During the whole of the Christmas holiday period, for six weeks in fact, the same three operas are being performed. Just at the time when people living in the country can come to London. Perhaps the Management no longer wants to encourage opera going'. The above extract is typical of many letters OPERA has received in recent weeks, not only from readers living in the provinces, but also from disgruntled operagoers in London who, rightly I believe, feel that the repertory, or rather lack of it, at Covent Garden in recent weeks offers them little variety. Between November 5, 1956 and February 28, 1957, a period of nearly seventeen weeks, there will have been sixty performances of TEN operas; last season, when the Ballet Company did not appear in London until the end of December, there were eighty-two performances of THIRTEE operas between October 17 and February 18, a period of eighteen weeks; and in the 1954-5 season, seventy-six performances of FIFTEEN operas in roughly the same period. Now let us look at some more figures. In the whole of the 1950-51 season there was a repertory of 26 operas, EIGHTEE of which were given in London before the spring tour, and more than a dozen of which could be heard at Covent Garden from mid-December to mid-January; and for 1951-2 the figures were 19 operas in the repertory, SEVE TEEN given before the tour, and 10 heard during the Christmas period. I have chosen these seasons for a special reason; they represent the Rank! regime, the Kubelik regime and the 'Interregnum'. The 1950-51 (Rank!) pattern was lots of operas, plenty of guest artists, but considerably less rehearsal time devoted to the repertory performances. The 1956-7 (Kubelik) pattern is planned more on the Italian stagione lines than those of the German repertory house; few operas, fewer guest artists, long periods of preparation and intense rehearsal. Now Mr Kubelik will probably maintain that the preparation of such complex and difficult works as Jenufa and The Mastersingers, which entail long periods of rehearsal, precludes many other works being given during the weeks preceding their production. But is that really the case? The 1951-2 figures that I have quoted were for the period when the world-premiere of Billy Budd was being prepared, when Kleiber was rehearsing the first stage performance in this country of W ozzeck and Beecham repeating his Meistersinger. Now as every one knows, when it came to the matter of rehearsal and preparation Kleiber was the most demanding of all operatic conductors; and Britten's new opera must also have needed a great deal of time spent on it. If the same season could also include performances of Rosenkavalier, Salome, Fidelio, Trovatore, Aida, Tosca and Turandot, then it surely is not being unreasonable to suggest that the recent constant repetitions of The Magic Flute and Carmen (I will not include Jenufa because it is clearly the duty of the management to 'plug' it as much as possible until it is accepted by the public), to the exclusion of other operas, have been both unnecessary and unpopular? 72 H.D.R.

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