André de Ridder is either brave or stupid. He has accepted the role as the music director of English National Opera – its chief conductor and keeper of its musical flame. He will take up the role formally in 2027. The post has been empty for several anguished years, sparked by Arts Council England’s 2022 announcement that the company would lose all its funding unless it moved out of London. Amid a fightback that, to cut a long story short, resulted in the company retaining a foothold in the London Coliseum, but partially moving to Manchester, De Ridder’s predecessor, Martyn Brabbins, abruptly quit in 2023, saying that the company was heading into “managed decline”. Brabbins’s predecessor, Mark Wigglesworth, had also resigned suddenly in 2016, saying ENO was evolving into “something I do not recognise”. It was beginning to sound like an opera plot. Bluebeard’s Castle, maybe. A murdered conductor behind every door in the mansion.
And yet: De Ridder’s enthusiasm is irrepressible. For some, it would be daunting to come into a company whose world-class orchestra and chorus have had their full-time contracts slashed to seven months of the year; from which the chief executive has just resigned; where morale (insiders tell me) is rock bottom. But the Berlin-raised 54-year-old sees only the opportunities. From his perspective, the shake-ups are in the past.
