OPERA FOR EVERYBODY: The Story of English National Opera

With its magnificent tower at the end of St Martin?s Lane near Trafalgar Square, we have a lively history of England's oldest continuously performing arts company. Susie Gilbert traces the development of the English National Opera from its earliest origins in the darkest Victorian slums of The Cut where it was conceived as a vehicle of social reform, through two World Wars and via Sadler's Wells to its great glory days at the Coliseum and beyond. Inspired by the idealism of Lilian Baylis, the Company's ethos is that opera in the vernacular, in English and not Italian or other foreign languages, can reach out to even the least privileged members of society, and create potent, immediate communication with its audience. The dual aim of the Company has been to extend the appreciation of opera to make the drama equal partner with the music. ENO played in village halls and regional cinemas during WW2, toured and travelled from Bournemouth to Kiev after it, and in 2008 returned for a short season to its birthplace at the Old Vic. ENO's biography illuminates the story of the development of British cultural life during the last 120 years and the growth of a middle class able to enjoy the possibilities of longer periods of leisure. The story begins in the era of Ruskin, William Morris and others who took on the role of missionaries in their efforts to tackle the chronic poverty, alcoholism and prostitution of the era and who saw housing reform as a link to cultural amelioration. The biography sets the Company's artistic achievements within the wider context of social and political attitudes to the arts, and the ever-changing theatrical style. With full access to ENO's archives, Gilbert has unearthed a rich range of material and held numerous interviews with fascinating personalities to weave an absorbing tale of life both in front and behind the scenes as it developed over the years, based heavily on the Company's management archives, and how producers have at some points seemed more interested in securing controversy than in satisfying the audience. The history ends in 2009. 2017 huge paperback reprint, 703pp.