The ENO is in a mess, but Manchester moving to won't solve its problems

It is one thing to say there is too much concentration of arts in London, but that is not addressed by a cull

- Anne MckElvoy

THE English National Opera is a strange beast. On one level, it is the second opera house to glitzy Covent Garden, where the musical cognoscenti, wealthy, and government ministers hover to ensure a credible mix of high culture and intentions in (a few) cheap seats. English National Opera has more overtly democratic credentials — opera sung in English has been its USP — a hangover from the days when surtitling technology was basic and audiences less accustomed to relishing Netflix foreign drama with translations.

As long as I have attended and written about the grand old Coliseum in St Martin’s Lane, the “Coli” has been both the glory and curse of the ENO: so huge as to be unfillable for novel works and latterly reliant on risky deals with musicals, which often don’t work well in a space that is better for opera and sporadic seasons of ballet.

Funding squeezes have long been at its throat and now threaten strangulation. A defence by the Arts Council chief executive Darren Henley notes that the main arts funding body “declined to offer ENO a place in its next national portfolio of funded organisations. Instead, we proposed a package for it to relocate and reimagine itself outside London.”