 and despite excellent productions and marketing, it struggles to fill the house. The city's new arts centre at The Factory, not yet opened, is totally inappropriate for opera, and the old Palace Theatre is hampered by all the shortcomings of the Coliseum (not least an absence of rehearsal, office and storage space). Manchester, in short, neither wants nor needs ENO. A far more practical possibility is a return to Sadler's Wells in Islington, where the company was based until 1968. The theatre (rebuilt since 1968) has good acoustics, an orchestra pit, a smaller space for chamber opera, and rehearsal studios. Opera has successfully been presented there in the past, but it is now identified as a centre for dance. It can continue to be that, while giving room to short regular seasons by a scaled-down ENO that can spend the re){kind=link}
It would be lunacy for the company to relocate to a city where Opera North already struggles to fill seats – and there is a better solution
English National Opera has been booted out of the last chance saloon. Arts Council England’s patience has expired, and they’ve told the company that something has to change radically. ENO can’t say it wasn’t warned – for the past 20 years or more, it has struggled through a series of financial and managerial crises as it tried to sustain a faulty business model based on occupation of the white elephant that is the totally impractical London Coliseum. Meanwhile, as bailouts have been doled out and grants cut and budgets slashed, audiences have dwindled. Despite some artistic success, it just couldn’t go on.
But what next? Nobody wants to see the soloists, chorus, orchestra and staff lose their jobs. There is still a core loyal public for opera “at popular prices” and a need for outreach work. ACE is offering £17 million to come up with a new structure, and there has been vague talk about moving base to Manchester.
Such a relocation would be total lunacy, and that it has even been mooted suggests that nobody has begun to think seriously about the problem. Opera North already presents regular seasons in Manchester (the Lowry in Salford, to be precise) and despite excellent productions and marketing, it struggles to fill the house. The city’s new arts centre at The Factory, not yet opened, is totally inappropriate for opera, and the old Palace Theatre is hampered by all the shortcomings of the Coliseum (not least an absence of rehearsal, office and storage space). Manchester, in short, neither wants nor needs ENO.
A far more practical possibility is a return to Sadler’s Wells in Islington, where the company was based until 1968. The theatre (rebuilt since 1968) has good acoustics, an orchestra pit, a smaller space for chamber opera, and rehearsal studios. Opera has successfully been presented there in the past, but it is now identified as a centre for dance.