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Henrietta Bredin

Wednesday, 26th March 2008

Henrietta Bredin talks to the Young Vic’s David Lan and ENO’s John Berry about the joys of collaboration

At ENO, the artistic director John Berry says that the freedom to expand the company’s activities into another space is exhilarating but has been a struggle to earn. He does not feel that such a venture could have been contemplated as recently as two years ago but believes that now, with healthier figures at the box office, new contract negotiations and income generated by visiting companies, the time is ripe for expansion and experiment. There are now three periods during the year when the Coliseum no longer puts on opera but plays host to, for example, this spring, New York City Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, Carlos Acosta, Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. This means that ENO can manifest itself in other forms and other venues. Berry is keen to emphasise, however, that this will not involve the ghettoising of 20th- and 21st-century works. Among other plans — now sadly on hold because of the shockingly untimely death of its librettist and director Anthony Minghella — is a commission from the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov for an opera to be given its première at the Coliseum before going on to New York. ENO and the Metropolitan Opera are keenly in harness on a number of co-productions, with Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (a big success in London last year) opening at the Met this April.

There is a buzz around the performance of new work, a clout to being associated with the pangs of first creation, but second performances, second productions, are much harder to secure. It’s good, therefore, that this ENO/Young Vic collaboration is being launched with revivals of contemporary but existing work. While I hope that they will also consider new commissions on a small scale, taking full advantage of David Lan’s sure instinct for good writing, for directorial and design talent, and of Edward Gardner’s connections with young composers, I would love to see some imaginative choices of operas that could be given a fresh airing. What about Julian Grant’s A Family Affair, with its brilliant libretto by Nick Dear, based on the Ostrovsky play? Quite apart from anything else, it’s a comic opera, genuinely funny both dramatically and musically. And that makes it a very rare beast indeed.