<B>Unflappable impresario Raymond Gubbay has developed a thick skin after 35 years in classical music.</B><BR>Antony Thorncroft in The Financial Times gets inside the boisterous 56-year-old with a cool head and a passion for deals. <P><BR>For Raymond Gubbay, classical music impresario extraordinaire, it had been a slightly busier week than usual. At the Royal Albert Hall he opened his Carmen; at the Savoy Theatre he presented the D'Oyle Carte company in Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe; and at Birmingham Symphony Hall there was the I'm sorry I forgot Valentine's Day concert for embarrassed lovers - and Gubbay: "the Hall had been booked already for February 14th", he admits genially.<P>Raymond Gubbay is the nation's leading purveyor of live classical music, incorporating opera and ballet. He presents about 600 performances a year and sells more than 700,000 tickets, attracting a larger audience than the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. But crucially Covent Garden receives Pounds 20m a year in public support, and Gubbay receives not a penny.<P><A HREF="http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020323001848&query=ballet" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>