The end of ENO?

[Simon B]

As a footnote to an already overlong post (likely failed attempts at levity included) when the Covent Garden restaurants are mentioned I do have to remind myself that this probably isn't referring to the Tesco Metro on the corner of Waterloo bridge and the Strand which is what the concept means to me!

[Master Jacques]

Don't agree. And I think Wagner was very, very wrong to want his works staged in English, as they sound appallingly pompous when sung in that language (as Andrew Porter's once inexplicably-lauded translation proves). If you've got subtitles, you don't need it 'sung in the language of the audience'.

That's not what surtitles are for - they're for accessibility purposes. The idea that reading a text hoisted high above the stage (taking the eye away from the production and giving away the punchlines in comic opera before they're spoken) does anything for the operatic experience is a curious one. They're anathema for people who care about opera as drama.

This is the oldest argument in the world, but only a side issue here. So I'll content myself with reminding you of one case: following hearing Andrew Porter's English Ring in the 1970s, several German visitors expressed the heartfelt opinion that it ought to be translated into German, to enable them to understand what Wagner's terrible - and infinitely more pompous - text was supposed to mean!

When you've got such a laughably poor, faux-medieval piece of antiquated pomposity to deal with, then translation becomes not an option, but a necessity - and if you think that's strong, you ought to read what RVW said about doing Wagner in German!

[duncan]

Likewise. They let me in on a fairly regular basis without any obvious condescension* which is pretty much QED on that score. (*Maybe I'm enough of a lumbering provincial oaf that I don't even notice).

Inevitably, you tend to get a very different impression depending on which bit of it your ticket is for. It helps to note that probably 50% of the entire capacity of the place is the Amphi, side balconies and other cheaper bits. Fellow occupants of the standing places I mostly occupy are more likely to be accessorising with a battered carrier bag and dishevelled Grauniad than anything that would look at home in a diamond heist.

Downstairs is a different matter, based on my occasional forays there made when unsold seats are put on offer at about 1/5 of their usual price. Though again, I've never discerned any overt snobbery towards me despite being obviously out of my natural habitat, what with my "Wardrobe by Tesco" vibe and so on. I have sat with numerous people who exude the obvious trappings of significant wealth and the background that goes with it, but surprisingly often they've opened conversations which quickly reveal that I don't have a monopoly on a sincere love of opera.


The ROH is a strange and incongruous coalition of properly wealthy and well connected opera lovers, a residue of others who are minted but for whom the opera is incidental to a night out and a whole load of other people drawn from a reasonable cross section of the population united only by the quirk of some level of interest in opera. This is its strength really. I'm glad the properly wealthy lot who sit downstairs are there, because without the wads of cash they hand over and the influence they exert the place would be broke. The money from ACE is a relatively small proportion of the turnover but comes with the string that they have to, and do, let the likes of me in. Take that away and it'll keep going (potentially ending up as the only full-scale UK opera company left the way things are going) but without the obligation to sell some tickets at prices provincial oafs like me can sometimes afford.

Excellent post. I'm one of the Amphi 50%, dinner by Itsu (get me!) but only just before closing when everything is half price.

I think it is a considerable shame opera has this reputation as being only for some notional rich elite. Ultimately this is what has cost ENO.

Edit: I like surtitles! (interesting that subtitled films are the connoisseurs choice and dubbing is for plebs, whereas the reverse seems to apply in opera)

[Ein Heldenleben]

Excellent post. I'm one of the Amphi 50%, dinner by Itsu (get me!) but only just before closing when everything is half price.

I think it is a considerable shame opera has this reputation as being only for some notional rich elite. Ultimately this is what has cost ENO.

Edit: I like surtitles! (interesting that subtitled films are the connoisseurs choice and dubbing is for plebs, whereas the reverse seems to apply in opera)

The irony is the ENO has some of the cheapest seats in the West End all ,thanks to Matcham , with excellent sight lines ..much better than the slips at ROH which are becoming a tiny bit of a ripoff.
No getting into it now but Wagner’s libretti - or more accurately verse drama -aren’t all bad. The Liebestod is actually an excellent bit of impressionistic free-ish verse which I reckon had a big influence on T.S Eliot. Wagner was a windbag but also a genius …

[Cockney Sparrow]

Likewise. They let me in on a fairly regular basis without any obvious condescension* which is pretty much QED on that score. (*Maybe I'm enough of a lumbering provincial oaf that I don't even notice).

Inevitably, you tend to get a very different impression depending on which bit of it your ticket is for. It helps to note that probably 50% of the entire capacity of the place is the Amphi, side balconies and other cheaper bits. Fellow occupants of the standing places I mostly occupy are more likely to be accessorising with a battered carrier bag and dishevelled Grauniad than anything that would look at home in a diamond heist.

Downstairs is a different matter, based on my occasional forays there made when unsold seats are put on offer at about 1/5 of their usual price. Though again, I've never discerned any overt snobbery towards me despite being obviously out of my natural habitat, what with my "Wardrobe by Tesco" vibe and so on. I have sat with numerous people who exude the obvious trappings of significant wealth and the background that goes with it, but surprisingly often they've opened conversations which quickly reveal that I don't have a monopoly on a sincere love of opera.

No doubt there will be some obnoxious types, that's just life. I may be one myself, though solely with anyone who won't sit the still and shut the up during the music, but I'd say that just makes me an intolerant git. This, I would contend, is quite distinct from snobbery. In any case, I'm just as much of a git when I attend ENO or WNO or Opera North so it's nothing to do with Covent Garden.

The ROH is a strange and incongruous coalition of properly wealthy and well connected opera lovers, a residue of others who are minted but for whom the opera is incidental to a night out and a whole load of other people drawn from a reasonable cross section of the population united only by the quirk of some level of interest in opera. This is its strength really. I'm glad the properly wealthy lot who sit downstairs are there, because without the wads of cash they hand over and the influence they exert the place would be broke. The money from ACE is a relatively small proportion of the turnover but comes with the string that they have to, and do, let the likes of me in. Take that away and it'll keep going (potentially ending up as the only full-scale UK opera company left the way things are going) but without the obligation to sell some tickets at prices provincial oafs like me can sometimes afford.

I very much agree with what you say. Some people will strike up a friendly exchange where it might not be predicted, and its much more of a cross section of humanity than might be expected if you've never been. I'm not intimidated by those who do dress up, opulently or not, if that is what they enjoy or need to do. Its good for people watching.

I can't be bothered to dress up, nor use the cloakroom (delay in getting away to the train) so its reasonably smart, office style rucksack and no-one bothers - I often inhabit the lower lobbies of the House before the start and in intervals. Mrs CS has a rooted objection to restaurant prices of the nature of the ROH and considers them justified only as an event in itself very occasionally for some celebration. We often eat rolls in one of the out of the way seated areas during the interval and no-one has ever shown any interest, adverse or otherwise.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Likewise. They let me in on a fairly regular basis without any obvious condescension* which is pretty much QED on that score. (*Maybe I'm enough of a lumbering provincial oaf that I don't even notice).

Inevitably, you tend to get a very different impression depending on which bit of it your ticket is for. It helps to note that probably 50% of the entire capacity of the place is the Amphi, side balconies and other cheaper bits. Fellow occupants of the standing places I mostly occupy are more likely to be accessorising with a battered carrier bag and dishevelled Grauniad than anything that would look at home in a diamond heist.

Downstairs is a different matter, based on my occasional forays there made when unsold seats are put on offer at about 1/5 of their usual price. Though again, I've never discerned any overt snobbery towards me despite being obviously out of my natural habitat, what with my "Wardrobe by Tesco" vibe and so on. I have sat with numerous people who exude the obvious trappings of significant wealth and the background that goes with it, but surprisingly often they've opened conversations which quickly reveal that I don't have a monopoly on a sincere love of opera.

No doubt there will be some obnoxious types, that's just life. I may be one myself, though solely with anyone who won't sit the still and shut the up during the music, but I'd say that just makes me an intolerant git. This, I would contend, is quite distinct from snobbery. In any case, I'm just as much of a git when I attend ENO or WNO or Opera North so it's nothing to do with Covent Garden.

The ROH is a strange and incongruous coalition of properly wealthy and well connected opera lovers, a residue of others who are minted but for whom the opera is incidental to a night out and a whole load of other people drawn from a reasonable cross section of the population united only by the quirk of some level of interest in opera. This is its strength really. I'm glad the properly wealthy lot who sit downstairs are there, because without the wads of cash they hand over and the influence they exert the place would be broke. The money from ACE is a relatively small proportion of the turnover but comes with the string that they have to, and do, let the likes of me in. Take that away and it'll keep going (potentially ending up as the only full-scale UK opera company left the way things are going) but without the obligation to sell some tickets at prices provincial oafs like me can sometimes afford.

Excellent analysis of the audience. A lot of the stalls ticket holders are wealthy tourists in my experience .
Not every one who sits in the stalls though is properly wealthy . If you run an old banger and don’t go on foreign holidays it is affordable. 10 x 2 side stalls tickets is about £3,000 a year. Which is yes a big sum but a lot of people spend that on booze, hols and footy. You pays your money and takes your choice.

[gurnemanz]

I'm not dogmatic about it but by preference I want to hear what the composer actually wrote. Even if it is in your native language you can't necessarily understand what is being sung. I have had some worthwhile experiences of opera in English over the years, for which I am mainly grateful to ENO. My first ever live opera was the Magic Flute in English, Sadler's Wells at the Coliseum (1969?). I also remember Janet Baker in Werther in 1977, Jonathan Miller Rosenkavalier, Parsifal and Terry Gilliam Damnation of Faust in English. More recent operas we have seen at ENO have been English original: Nixon in China, Candide. Our last one, possibly, sadly, last ever, was Akhenaten, which is not in English at all. I have also enjoyed Italian opera in German in Germany.

I definitely prefer Wagner in German. This is not because I know German. (We studied the Nibelungenlied in the original Middle High German as undergraduates.) It's not just the words, but the sound of the words - the blend of vowels and consonants, the alliteration. the recurring phrases often linked to leitmotifs. I can't imagine sitting down to read Wagner as poetry.

The same applies to Italian and French, and to Czech, which I don't know at all. The sound of the Czech is for me part of the authentic musical experience.

[Ein Heldenleben]

An excellent letter in todays Times which sums up the parlous position of many much better than I can…though to be honest to build my career I had to move around the country several times..

“ HUMAN COST OF ENO FUNDING CUT
Sir, The decision by Arts Council England to cut off funding to English National Opera and other London arts venues is indefensible (news, Nov 5; letters, Nov 7 & 8). It brutally curtails the vital work of companies who have built up their artistic profile over many years and is a slap in the face to those who have made every effort to offer a life-enhancing, high-quality experience to the public at affordable prices, and with an awareness of social responsibilities. It also jeopardises the livelihoods of hundreds of people who have done nothing to deserve this attack.

Venues nationwide are in need of financial assistance, but the doctrine of taking money from London to distribute to other areas is unfair and illogical. London is one of the world’s artistic centres, attracting a huge number of visitors from abroad. Berlin, Paris and Vienna all proudly sustain three major opera houses; surely two in London is not too many.



From a human point of view, the expectation that several hundred ENO employees can simply relocate to Manchester is crass and unfeeling, and treats people as pawns. Very few are free to make such a huge change: they have children at school, partners in jobs, family ties and many other local roots. Instead of caving in to the government’s philistine and destructive policies, the Arts Council should be fighting for real support for the arts in every part of the country, including the capital.
Tony Lamb
Former principal clarinet, ENO; Teddington, Middx

[Darkbloom]

Of course there should be room for two opera houses in London, as every major capital in Europe with a claim to serious artistic commitment shows. And the English-language house is much the more important of the two, culturally (and artistically too, from a historical perspective). Trashing it is an act of barbarism. Wagner, Puccini and Janacek would all have been appalled that their work was in danger of not being seen here in English. Just read Vaughan Williams on this subject - for him "original language opera" was for "snobs and prigs". Full stop.

The problem has been that for decades the funding has been spent on bloating the administrative departments - and in the case of ENO on non-core activities, social service programmes and multimedia gimmicks. That's not how things are done in Germany, for example. The Arts Council has pushed this populist agenda: if they could take that dirty word "Arts" out of their title, they would. With principal solo singers and choruses moving off contract, it became even cheaper for ENO to mount a dwindling number of performances, at astronomical, American-style price levels for most people.

As a result we've ended up with the deluge of half-full Toscas, Bohemes and Carmens (in both houses) which has alienated music lovers who would be happy to pay reasonable amounts to see more interesting repertoire, in decently intelligent productions.

It's significant that both houses have had a major falling-out with the opera critics (in so far as the rump of national press and specialist magazines such as Opera still make up some sort of critical mass). Go to the Royal Opera website, and you'll find a load of hyperbolic tweets from satisfied customers, saying what a brill evening out they've had at Covent Garden, and how fab the diva and the food were. And that's all you'll find. ENO project their own 'fabuloso' tweets on the drop curtain during the interval, and discourage the "cabal of critics" (S. Murphy) from attending at all. Reasoned critiques? Criticism?! No thanks!

We're in a right mess. And as far as opera goes, we're passing down nearly nothing to the next generation. A few snobby performances at Covent Garden for the great and good does not equate to a healthy situation in the performing arts. Pountney is quite right. Serota should be off to his next sinking ship right now. And why not hand back that undeserved knighthood while he's about it?

For me, the rot set in after the refurbishment. I used to go quite often before that, many times to operas I would not normally bother with, because tickets were so cheap (£2.50), which was a fabulous learning experience. After that, they raised the prices considerably and the place never felt the same. If opera has a future (which is doubtful) then a second house in London is vital because many people are put off by Covent Garden and don't think it's for them.

I suppose the last time ENO really made a mark was during the Elder-Jonas era but even after that I felt it stil had a role as an approachable way in to an awkward art from for many people. You could go and hear top-drawer singers like John Tom there too, who still performed at the Coli even when he had a big international career and was an excellent singer of English (unlike many of his colleagues, unfortunately).

Like many on here, I agree that this has been a slow, inevitable decline. I feel terribly sorry for the artists, who have been badly let down by poor management. I suppose the Ring will be junked again - this must be the second one to stop before completion, so Alberich's curse is still working.

[Darkbloom]

I was always told off when as an habitue of the upper slips (ie seats I could afford) I always claimed the old arrangement with our separate entrance + its own coffee bar was much preferable to the new house - the 90+ steps meant that those too obese to occupy one seat and not require 2 kept away - I was always happy to look down on those who helped fund my seat - though the old house had a leaky roof it didn't smell like a fishmongers.

I completely agree, slogging up those steps via the tradesmen's entrance was all part of the experience and you felt like you were among people who actually wanted to hear the music and weren't just there on some corporate jolly.

[Darkbloom]

I'm not dogmatic about it but by preference I want to hear what the composer actually wrote. Even if it is in your native language you can't necessarily understand what is being sung. I have had some worthwhile experiences of opera in English over the years, for which I am mainly grateful to ENO. My first ever live opera was the Magic Flute in English, Sadler's Wells at the Coliseum (1969?). I also remember Janet Baker in Werther in 1977, Jonathan Miller Rosenkavalier, Parsifal and Terry Gilliam Damnation of Faust in English. More recent operas we have seen at ENO have been English original: Nixon in China, Candide. Our last one, possibly, sadly, last ever, was Akhenaten, which is not in English at all. I have also enjoyed Italian opera in German in Germany.

I definitely prefer Wagner in German. This is not because I know German. (We studied the Nibelungenlied in the original Middle High German as undergraduates.) It's not just the words, but the sound of the words - the blend of vowels and consonants, the alliteration. the recurring phrases often linked to leitmotifs. I can't imagine sitting down to read Wagner as poetry.

The same applies to Italian and French, and to Czech, which I don't know at all. The sound of the Czech is for me part of the authentic musical experience.

The fact is, most English singers aren't very good at singing in their own language, that's why they had to bring in surtitles, so you may as well sing in the original language if you can't understand the words anyway. And some of the translations can be pretty ropey: I remember Kundry's two words in Act 3 sung in English as 'Service. Service', which sounded like she was calling for the waiter. Singing in English is a nice idea in principle but it's often quite awkward in practice.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I completely agree, slogging up those steps via the tradesmen's entrance was all part of the experience and you felt like you were among people who actually wanted to hear the music and weren't just there on some corporate jolly.

I sort of agree with you. But this might be the only country in the world where we think like that. Must be centuries of Puritanism.
Am I right in remembering that the amphi exiles were not just segregated on entrance but actively prevented from accessing the main house save for the interval dash through the Grand Tier to the Crush Bar?

[ChandlersFord]

That's not what surtitles are for - they're for accessibility purposes. The idea that reading a text hoisted high above the stage (taking the eye away from the production and giving away the punchlines in comic opera before they're spoken) does anything for the operatic experience is a curious one. They're anathema for people who care about opera as drama.

This is the oldest argument in the world, but only a side issue here. So I'll content myself with reminding you of one case: following hearing Andrew Porter's English Ring in the 1970s, several German visitors expressed the heartfelt opinion that it ought to be translated into German, to enable them to understand what Wagner's terrible - and infinitely more pompous - text was supposed to mean!

When you've got such a laughably poor, faux-medieval piece of antiquated pomposity to deal with, then translation becomes not an option, but a necessity - and if you think that's strong, you ought to read what RVW said about doing Wagner in German!

My German isn't great but I know enough to appreciate that Wagner was not a great writer of poetry. However, the 'stabreim' is an intrinsic part of the experience, for me. Take it away, and you're left with something that isn't really Wagner (Parsifal's 'so flattertend lachend die Locken!' remains a test case for me). And I don't actually need to follow the plot - most of the time, I'm already familiar with it. As for punchlines - has comic opera ever actually been funny?

[Ein Heldenleben]

My German isn't great but I know enough to appreciate that Wagner was not a great writer of poetry. However, the 'stabreim' is an intrinsic part of the experience, for me. Take it away, and you're left with something that isn't really Wagner (Parsifal's 'so flattertend lachend die Locken!' remains a test case for me). And I don't actually need to follow the plot - most of the time, I'm already familiar with it. As for punchlines - has comic opera ever actually been funny?

Gianni Schicci and Falstaff are both in places laugh out loud funny,,,,

[ChandlersFord]

Gianni Schicci and Falstaff are both in places laugh out loud funny,,,,

I'd agree about GS but Falstaff borrows the plot of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Shakespeare was notoriously bad at 'jokes'.