Henrietta Bredin

A colossal achievement

There is a slightly odd but pleasingly old-fashioned feel to the design for the dustjacket of this book, with its early London Underground style of lettering and a painting of the Coliseum at night, as viewed from Trafalgar Square, in 1905 — some decades before the building became home to English National Opera.

There is a slightly odd but pleasingly old-fashioned feel to the design for the dustjacket of this book, with its early London Underground style of lettering and a painting of the Coliseum at night, as viewed from Trafalgar Square, in 1905 — some decades before the building became home to English National Opera.

There is a slightly odd but pleasingly old-fashioned feel to the design for the dustjacket of this book, with its early London Underground style of lettering and a painting of the Coliseum at night, as viewed from Trafalgar Square, in 1905 — some decades before the building became home to English National Opera.

This is a substantial volume and it deals with its subject matter in considerable detail. The history of English National Opera is a long and complex one and Susie Gilbert has been assiduous in her research, helped by generous access to the company’s archives and, clearly invaluable, the long memory and informed opinions of Rodney Milnes, opera critic of this magazine from 1970-1990. She has conducted numerous interviews and ploughed her way through correspondence, press cuttings and minutes of board meetings. Every source is scrupulously noted, there is a comprehensive index and a useful list of all operas staged from 1931 to the present day.

It is undeniable that the early days of the company make for the most interesting reading, with my great heroine Lilian Baylis firmly at the centre of the story. Lilian Baylis was a phenomenon, with her obstinacy, her strongly held religious beliefs, her fierce devotion to the artists who worked for her, her rather unlikely passion for opera and theatre and her conviction that both pleasures should be available to everyone. Anyone working for ENO should be given a copy of her speech for radio with its clarion call conclusion:

All art is a bond between rich and poor; it allows of no class distinctions .

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