ENO On

I see from the Guardian Website that ENO has appointed a new chairman in the form of Vernon Ellis, a member of the board and acting Chairman since 2005. It is the obvious choice, but I suppose they had to go through the excercise in transparency to ensure that he would not come into place accompanied by the barrage of complaint that happened when they put the current administration team in place to replace Sean Doran. Whilst acting Chairman, Ellis seems to have kept in the background, which is a good thing, and I hope that this continues. Many of the problems that have occurred at ENO and the Royal Opera House have been exacerbated by over active chairmen and boards. It seems that there is a fine dividing line between providing wise counsel and support and becoming too dominant so that the Artistic Director/Intendant is overshadowed. Mind you, I'm sure it looks entirely different from the inside. But we are unlikely to hear the full truth about what actually went on behind closed doors for some considerable time, if ever. After all, by the time people come to write their memoirs they are either economical with the truth, or time has cast a different glow over events.