The new Chief Executive of English National Opera, Cressida Pollock, talks to Glenn Close about resilience, audience development and banishing chaos to the wings.
When Cressida Pollock seeks respite from the working day she drifts up from her office into the darkened auditorium of the London Coliseum. There, the new chief executive of the English National Opera (ENO) settles into one of 2,350 empty seats and watches the singers rehearse for ten minutes or so in silent, solitary contemplation.
It is a journey one imagines Ms Pollock must have made a fair bit during her short term at the helm of the beleaguered organisation which, over the past 12 months, has lurched from one crisis to the next. The Arts Council has cut its funding by a third and followed this up by placing the company in special measures. These financial woes have been exacerbated by more high-profile bloodletting than a performance of Puccini’s Tosca... Keep reading on The Telegraph
When Cressida Pollock seeks respite from the working day she drifts up from her office into the darkened auditorium of the London Coliseum. There, the new chief executive of the English National Opera (ENO) settles into one of 2,350 empty seats and watches the singers rehearse for ten minutes or so in silent, solitary contemplation.
It is a journey one imagines Ms Pollock must have made a fair bit during her short term at the helm of the beleaguered organisation which, over the past 12 months, has lurched from one crisis to the next. The Arts Council has cut its funding by a third and followed this up by placing the company in special measures. These financial woes have been exacerbated by more high-profile bloodletting than a performance of Puccini’s Tosca... Keep reading on The Telegraph