'Royal Opera House Hall handled TV divas, now for the real thing.' By Norman Lebrecht.

I regularly disagree with Lebrecht's views, but you can rely on him to go beyond the press releases:

TONY HALL will sail into Covent Garden on the wave of sympathy that the British always exhibit for someone who jumps into a shark-infested sea wearing brand-new plastic waterwings.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000148 ... ll112.html

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Arch ... 14,00.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/enjoyment/ ... 0101.shtml

Out of the red and into the Purple Haze
By Simon Tait for The Times

JUST five years ago all was panic at Covent Garden. As the reopening approached after a rambunctious £214 million reinvention process of the Royal Opera House, the state- of-the-art stage technology wasn’t responding, scheduled productions were flying out of the window and The Sunday Times announced “Opera House glitches may force shutdown”.

The house was on its fourth chief in three years, the American Michael Kaiser, who, 12 months before, had inherited a £12 million funding gap and was wrestling with an orchestra that was threatening to go on strike. In another six months he was to be out too.

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Tycoon fails to meet £22m opera pledge
By Richard Brooks for The Sunday Times


WHEN one of the world’s greatest opera benefactors agreed to donate £22.5m to the Royal Opera House, the directors were delighted. But now Alberto Vilar is being accused of failing to hand over all the cash.

Vilar, who is based in the United States and made his fortune investing in new technology companies, promised the cash to the Royal Opera House in 1999. The Vilar Floral Hall was subsequently named in his honour.

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Access all arias: how Mr Opera raised £20m
Tony Hall seemed an unlikely boss of the Royal Opera but the institution is winning praise for artistic excellence and innovative fundraising. By Richard Morrison for The Times:


AS unlikely saviours go, Tony Hall must be up there with the small boats that evacuated Dunkirk and the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. Back in autumn 2000 he was known to the public, if at all, as the grey, corporate-speak Head of News in John Birt’s grey, corporate-speak BBC. But beneath the suit lurked a tumultuous passion. Hall was an opera-lover. And when the poisoned chalice of running the Royal Opera House was being profferred to the usual bunch of reluctant arts grandees again — for the fourth time in five years — the grey man from the BBC edged himself forward and seized the acrid cup.

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Yes, Tony Hall has been a success and his willingness to listen is clear. I was at a public meeting where he made notes from the comments made and said, convincingly, that he would pick them up.

I had some initial concerns, as he admitted that opera was his love and he never attended ballet. But he immediately spotted Deborah Bull as someone who could help him get to grips with ballet and really has worked hard to support dance at the ROH.

However, the real turn-around at the ROH was initiated by his immediate predecessor, Michael Kaiser, who faced huge problems when he arrived. When Tony Hall came the turn-around was already well underway and he continued the process.