The English National Opera will suffer “irreparable damage” if it goes ahead with plans to scale back on productions, according to the music director of the Royal Opera House, Sir Antonio Pappano.
In a letter to the Times, which is signed by several opera stars including retired singers Dame Janet Baker and Dame Anne Evans, it is claimed that plans to reduce ENO’s chorus members’ contracts and limit its productions to just eight a season could “destroy” the company.
“ENO is first and foremost a company of musicians,” states the letter. “Decisions have been made about the future of the company without public consultation despite its public subsidy.”
The company has endured a difficult year, with huge cuts to its public subsidy, poor ticket sales and the departure of its leadership team. The Arts Council has put the company in special measures and, after reducing its annual grant from £17.4m to £12.3m, is questioning the need for a full-time chorus and orchestra.
The letter concludes: “We call upon ENO’s board to engage in a public examination of ways to protect the company and reinstate a full season of opera at the Coliseum before irreparable damage is done to this much-loved organisation, which has played such a central role in the cultural life of this country.”
• This article was amended on 11 December 2015. An earlier version referred to Janet Baker as a soprano, rather than a mezzo-soprano, and that both she and Anne Evans had retired recently.
