English National Opera (ENO)
is an opera company based in London
, England,
resident at the London
Coliseum
in St. Martin's
Lane
. It is one of the two principal opera
companies in London, along with the Royal Opera
, Covent
Garden
. All productions are performed in English,
and the company is known for its often modernised productions and
lower ticket prices.
History
In 1898,
Lilian Baylis presented a series of
opera concerts at the Old
Vic
theatre. Some ten years later she
established a theatre company there, initially performing
'cut-down' versions of
Shakespeare's
plays.
She
added a small group of dancers to the company, Sadler's Wells
Theatre
opened, and the Vic-Wells Opera Company was
formed. The dancers later separated from Vic-Wells and
became the
Royal Ballet.
The company toured while the theatre was closed during the
Second World War. It returned as Sadler's
Wells Opera Company, and the theatre re-opened with
Benjamin Britten's
Peter Grimes, introducing the first
English opera composer since
Purcell
to receive international acclaim (aside from
Arthur Sullivan, who wrote the popular
Savoy Operas but only one
grand opera).
Boyd
Neel conducted the company from 1944 to 1946.
In 1968 Sadler's Wells
Opera moved from Sadler's Wells Theatre to the London
Coliseum
. Six
years later the company was renamed
English National
Opera.
The 1980 represented a period of strength for the company, with
Peter Jonas as general
director,
David Pountney as artistic
director, and
Mark Elder as music
director, known as the "Power House" years.
In 1984 ENO was the
first British
opera
company to tour the United
States
since the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and
in 1990 it was the first major foreign opera company to tour the
former Soviet
Union
. After acquiring the freehold to the
Coliseum, the company embarked on a four-year restoration programme
in 2004.
While the Coliseum was undergoing these
changes, ENO temporarily made its home in the Barbican
Centre
. Martin Smith, who became ENO chairman in
2001, was an important financial donor to the restoration
costs.
In the early years of the 21st century, the ENO struggled with
artistic, administrative and financial difficulties. In July 2002,
Nicholas Payne resigned as ENO General Director. His successor was
Sean Doran, whose appointment was controversial because he had no
prior experience of running an opera company. One of Doran's
notable achievements was a performance of
Richard Wagner at the Glastonbury Festival.
However, low box-office returns and critical reviews of the ENO
Ring Cycle during the early part of his
tenure contributed to Doran's difficulties. In December 2003, music
director
Paul Daniel announced that he
would resign from ENO at the end of his contract in 2005. Towards
the later part of Daniel's tenure, there were reports of clashes
between him and Doran.
Oleg Caetani was
announced to succeed Daniel as music director as of January
2006.
On 29 November 2005, Doran resigned as artistic director, during
the first full season that he had programmed as artistic director.
ENO mounted sixteen productions in its 2005-06 season with a paid
attendance for the year of 216,236. Although ENO performs all
operas in English, in 2005 it introduced
surtitles at the Coliseum. In December 2005,
Caetani's appointment as the next ENO Music Director was cancelled.
To replace Doran, Smith decided to divide the duties between two
people and named Loretta Tomasi as chief executive and John Berry
as artistic director. However, these elevations from within the
organization were also controversial, because these postings were
neither advertised nor cleared at the top level of the Arts
Council. Smith received strong press criticism for this action, and
in December 2005, Smith announced his resignation. Berry soon
received criticism for his decisions regarding singer casting in
ENO productions.
In March 2006 ENO announced its next Music Director,
Edward Gardner, as of May 2007, with an
initial contract of 3 years. Under Gardner's leadership, the
quality of the orchestra and chorus has stabilised. In its 2007-08
season, ENO's marketing schemes produced strong growth in
attendance of younger audiences, and overall attendance figures
began to show improvement as the Coliseum played to 85 percent
capacity, a marked improvement. ENO has reported an improved
financial situation, with £5 million in reserve funds in April
2009.
Repertoire
Over the years the company has developed a reputation for staging
well-known operas in assertively updated productions with modern or
updated costumes and scenery, dividing opinion on the lines shown
in the following correspondence in
The
Times in July 2002 when Payne resigned as general
director:
- "Payne's employment of directors who are often seemingly more
concerned to indulge their egos in re-interpreting the operas they
have been invited to direct than in fulfilling the wishes of the
librettist and the composer has been the main reason for falling
attendance at the London Coliseum." (from the music critic Alan Blyth).
The company's repertoire has included two complete stagings of
Wagner's
Ring cycle since the 1970s; the
regular indroduction of new operas; revivals of light operas,
operettas (particularly
Gilbert and
Sullivan) and musicals; occasional stagings of oratorios in
full operatic guise; and the avoidance of
bel canto operas
where vocal display takes precedence over musical and dramatic
content.
Ring cycle
The Sadlers Wells/ENO
Ring cycle of the
1970s was a major milestone in the company's development. Music
director Sir
Charles Mackerras,
though a sound Wagnerian, had the vision and generosity to cede the
baton to
Reginald Goodall, who had
been a neglected figure on the Covent Garden staff for many years.
Goodall received critical praise for his conducting of these
performances, which helped to rejuvenate his later career. The
cycle had a new translation by
Andrew Porter, and designs
by
Ralph Koltai which were generally
welcomed as striking, while avoiding what some have seen as the
gimmickry of later productions. The performances were recorded for
commercial release on HMV (reissued by Chandos on CD). The singers
included Norman Bailey, Rita Hunter and Alberto Remedios.
In 2004-05, for the first time in 30 years, Wagner's Ring returned
to the stage in
English, coinciding
with the company's 30th
anniversary as
English National Opera. Following staged concerts over the previous
three seasons, Music Director Paul Daniel led the company in a new
production by Phyllida Lloyd, designed by Richard Hudson with
lighting by Simon Mills, performed in the
new ENO translation by Jeremy Sams.
The Rhinegold,
The Valkyrie and
Siegfried were all staged in 2004,
the Coliseum centenary year, and the production of
Twilight of the Gods
completed the new cycle in Spring 2005. The production was notable
for its use of contemporary
minimalist
sets and costumes.
Some critics described Lloyd's Cycle as
superior to that at the Royal Opera House, although many others thought it was muddled and
that its "relentlessly trivialising" approach served only to
belittle the work. It was also criticised as being poorly
sung and conducted.
Gilbert and Sullivan
ENO (and its predecessor, Sadler's Wells) has to date staged six of
the thirteen extant
Gilbert and
Sullivan operas. To coincide with the end of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's
monopoly when the copyright lapsed at the end of 1961,
Iolanthe was staged.
The production was
given as far afield as Belgium and Germany (1962) and Amsterdam
, Vienna
and Prague
(1965). The Mikado
followed shortly afterwards.
Patience was the next addition, in
1969, and was much revived in London and on tour in the UK and on
the continent. In a second, 1987, production of
The
Mikado, directed by
Jonathan
Miller, the role of the Lord High Executioner was performed by
comedians
Eric Idle and
Bill Oddie and later by G&S specialist
Richard Suart. The tenor
Bonaventura Bottone performed the role
of Nanki-Poo in 98 performances of the production, in both London
and Venice between 1987 and 2004. This production – set in the
1930s at an English seaside resort, with black and white sets and
costumes – is regularly revived. A production of
Princess Ida directed by
Ken Russell was a critical and box office
failure and ran but briefly.
The Pirates of Penzance was
produced in 2005, but no revival has been announced. A production
of
The Gondoliers directed
by
Martin Duncan opened in 2006 to
friendly reviews.
Home
- See also the article on the Coliseum
Theatre.
The
Coliseum Theatre, near Trafalgar Square
, is one of London's largest and best-equipped
theatres. It opened in 1904, the creation of the most
powerful theatre manager of the day,
Oswald
Stoll, and the foremost theatre architect,
Frank Matcham. Their ambition was to build the
largest and finest 'People's palace of entertainment' of its age.
English National Opera moved into the theatre in 1968. In 1992, ENO
bought the theatre for £12.8 million. The theatre underwent
extensive renovations between 2000 and 2004 and has the widest
proscenium arch in London.
The
former Decca
Studios
in West
Hampstead
, now known
as Lilian Baylis House, are used for ENO rehearsals. During
the tenure of English National Opera this building suffered from
many years of neglect and was in a poor state of repair. In 2008
extensive work was undertaken on the heating and ventilation
systems and the electrical system. Redecoration has also
begun.
Education
eno baylis is the education department of ENO.
They involve around 12,000 people every year in a wide range of
projects, events, courses and performances, with a goal of
developing creative responses to opera and music theatre; making
new work with communities and exploring individual creativity as a
means of providing access to ENO's productions; and encouraging
learning and development through participation of artists and
collaboration of resources.
Music directors
See also
References
- Hewitt, Ivan. "Elder statesman", Telegraph, 3 May
2004.
- Richard Morrison, "Gladiator at the Coliseum".
The Times, 11 January 2005.
- Reynolds, Nigel. "ENO musical director resigns",
Telegraph, 5 December 2003.
- Honigsbaum, Mark. "Chaos at the Coliseum after shock resignation of ENO
artistic director", The Guardian, 30 November
2005.
- Malvern, Jack. "ENO boss exits on a low note", The
Times, 30 November 2005.
- Malvern, Jack. "ENO chief sacked before he starts", The
Times, 29 December 2005.
- Christiansen, Rupert. "Chairman of opera house defends his record as he
quits", Telegraph, 22 December 2005.
- Canning, Hugh. "Opera: Billy rides the storm", The
Times, 11 December 2005.
- Christiansen, Rupert. "The arts column: The man who is eroding ENO's
identity", Telegraph, 15 March 2006.
- Morrison, Richard. "Young star takes baton in gamble to revive
ENO", The Times, 8 March 2006.
- "Under-30s rush for cheap seats at the ENO",
London Standard, 19 September 2008
- Gilbert and Sullivan Journal, September 1965, p.
304
External links
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