It has to be the greatest "soap" of the decade. People who would not enter an opera house for love or money became as avid for each new instalment of the inglorious Covent Garden saga as they'd ever be for East Enders or Ballykissangel. And with reason. The sorry history of maladministration and even downright incompetence defies imagination, and the wonder is that at least the high artistic standard for which the Royal Opera is acclaimed somehow survived the years of backstage discontent, feuding and conspiracy.
It offers a salutary lesson to the brave souls at present contemplating major expansion at Wexford, and to those braver, perhaps foolhardy, idealists aspiring to the grandeur of an all-Ireland opera company.
The first public outcry came in 1995 when the British Arts Council awarded Covent Garden £78.5 million towards its £213-million redevelopment. Within the House it had been taken for granted that the nation would be delighted to contribute substantially to a splendid new building, but not so. The Royal Opera was regarded as elitist - in fact, nothing more than an exclusive fief for the "toffs" and their consumption of smoked salmon sandwiches so much resented by Gerald Kaufmann, MP, who as chairman of the Select Committee formed to investigate affairs, was later to go far towards crucifying the management.
No matter that these days of intensive fish farming have put smoked salmon on the shelves of every supermarket. No matter either that no opera house in Britain is in line for state subsidies at the level prevailing on the Continent. BBC 2's fly-on-the-wall documentary, screened early in 1996, hammered home the E-message, and with startling chutzpah, Jeremy Isaacs, then General Director, confirmed it further by banning occupants of the cheaper upstairs seats from visiting the glossy lower foyers during intervals.
At that stage the principal problem exercising the administration was where the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies might function during the two-year closure required for re-building. There was talk of putting up a temporary theatre near Tower Bridge - Two opera houses for the price of one? Not likely. In the event few of the venues canvassed came to anything, though plans got under way for a season at the new Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1999. As it turned out, this was largely wishful thinking.
Sir Jeremy Isaacs retired a year early in 1996, but retained his £120,000 salary for the remaining 12 months of his contract . . . "There's no spin you can put on that at all," admitted his sidekick, Keith Cooper, and the situation was exacerbated by the 300 staff made redundant within months of the Lottery award.
Genista McIntosh from the National Theatre succeeded Isaacs as chief executive. She was known to be tough, talented and likeable, and high hopes were pinned on her. However, seething discontent and mounting debt were too much for even her brave spirit, and within six months she resigned, ostensibly for "health reasons". Resignations and sackings at all levels were now becoming common practice in Covent Garden, and in a bid to restore stability, the chairman of the Board, Lord Chadlington, brought in his erstwhile Arts Council colleague, Mary Allen, without recourse to the customary formalities.
After a brilliant final season, the House closed in July '97, and its two companies went their separate ways. The Royal Ballet fetched up in Hammersmith, which was hardly enticing for audiences accustomed to a central London location, while the Royal Opera wandered from the Barbican to the Shaftesbury Theatre, neither of them entirely suitable for the purpose. Box-office receipts declined and by November the season's losses reached £75,000, bringing the total Covent Garden deficit to £5.2 million. In her published diary, A House Divided, Mary Allen recalls the day a month earlier when the House faced bankruptcy . . . "Apparently there should have been £400,000 in our bank account, and it was at zero. And £600,000 of cheques have been issued."
Within the next 24 hours a further probable shortfall of £2-million was uncovered, and it transpired that the cash books had not been kept up to date during the previous six weeks. The Floral Trust, established to support the building development, came to the rescue, but this could only be a temporary stop-gap, and when the scathing Select Committee report was published in December, Lord Chadlington wisely threw himself on his sword and resigned, along with most of the Board. Mary Allen stayed on.
Sir Colin Southgate of EMI and Spice Girls fame then took over, with much tough, genial talk about renegotiating "flexible" contracts or else redundancy. In March Keith Cooper was sacked, and rather than accept a lesser position, Mary Allen flounced off. More serious, however, was the resignation a month before of Nicholas Payne, one of the most gifted opera administrators in the business.
"I think I got out just in time", he murmured at the English National Opera press conference held to welcome him as that company's new artistic director. As he spoke with consummate mis-timing, the Royal Opera was announcing total closure for the remainder of the re-development period, including cancellation of the Sadler's Wells season, plus a dramatically reduced programme schedule for at least the first 18 months in the new house. The "shock-horror" value of the story was compounded by the impossibility of reaching anyone at the opera house by telephone: "Temporarily unavailable" stated a metallic voice, and many of us wondered if they had been cut off for non-payment of the bill. Even the Royal Opera's music director, the eminent Dutch conductor, Sir Bernard Haitink was merely notified of the decision by fax . . . "Maybe you will be interested in this," it began.
"I was flabbergasted," said Sir Bernard. "Imagine! I was not consulted. I'm afraid the new chairman does not understand artists. He never comes to anything, he does not know what we are doing. The whole situation is a mess. Nobody wants to use public money, but you can't run an opera house without it."
Naturally, he resigned.
Negotiations between Sir Colin and the orchestra, chorus and dancers continued, ranging from the serious stuff of salaries and working conditions to a ludicrous but furious row over proposals to reduce the quantity of free tights and jock straps issued to the ballet.
"We are working steadily towards the achievement of working practices which we know will be practicable within our available budget," Sir Colin stated, and in the end he got his way. New agreements with the unions were reached; wealthy patrons such as Lord Sainsbury and the Clore heiress, Vivien Duffield, who had threatened to cancel vital financial support, were induced to change their minds, and Haitink was persuaded to withdraw his resignation. A modest programme of opera and concert is now in place, along with a new executive director imported from the US.
Michael Kaiser is known as "the turnaround king" in his homeland, and despite the initial hitch of neglect to apply for a work permit by an organisation that employs singers from all over the world, he seems confident that he can get the Royal Opera House back in full working order within a couple of years. The opening programme has been announced, there will be cheaper seats throughout, plenty of educational work, matinees and greater accessibility for the general public - all the trappings of "a people's opera" in fact, without anything to attract the dreaded stigma of the E-word.
There is as yet no permanent artistic director however, and though Elaine Padmore and Francesca Zambello were mentioned as possibilities, both are now said to be out of the running. Meanwhile, one of the grandest opera houses in Europe is rising on schedule at Covent Garden. Taking cut-backs, reduced programming and general streamlining of management and work force into account, the pious hope must be that there will still be a company worthy to perform in it.
