How ENO’s new artistic director is taking on the challenge of Covid

Annilese Miskimmon, English National Opera’s incoming artistic director, was due to start her new role in September but left her previous job running Den Norske Oper in Oslo several months early when lockdown happened. She says that it was untenable for ENO not to be producing any work and immediately got cracking to deliver a critically acclaimed drive-in production of Puccini’s La Bohème at Alexandra Palace.

‘It was like a huge military operation, we spent more time planning the show than rehearsing it. We split ourselves into two companies that never met or were in the same space at the same time including our technical people and stage managers. The rehearsal rooms were like a game of battleships with the floor marked out so everyone could make sure they were 2m away from each other and we more masks all the time even outside in Alexandra Palace. On paper it sounds onerous, difficult and depressing but in reality it wasn’t, everyone acclimatised very quickly.’

Given the size of the Coliseum, Miskimmon is hoping it will be possible to fill 900 of the 2000 seats for performances of Mozart’s Requiem on 6 and 7 November and John Adams’opera  El Niño on 27 and 28 November followed by a fully staged opera production in the spring. However, much depends on how comfortable audiences feel going back into the theatre. Alongside social distancing measures, her facilities team is putting in High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters, monitoring the carbon dioxide levels constantly and installing two UV-C lighting arrays. The UV-C lighting spectrum effectively disrupts the structure of the coronavirus.

However Miskimmon admits that even with these measures in place, unless there is a return to a ‘pseudo-normality’ soon ENO, along with many other performing companies, will find the current situation with significantly reduced audience numbers financially unsustainable. ‘We need to know, on behalf of the industry, that audiences are going to come back and feel safe. One of our roles is to carry out research and development for the larger national and international scene and La Bohème was designed as a prototype to share that knowledge. If the Arts Council really believes its message about accessibility, affordability and access they have to get behind the companies who are making sure art is for everyone.’ 

One of the things that could be a real game-changer is testing. One of Miskimmon’s greatest frustrations is not being able get people tested fast enough. Having quick and easy access to testing varies not only from country to country but even within the same city. For instance, each of Vienna’s opera houses has different restrictions. The Wiener Kammeroper decided to invest in testing the singers and key members of the production team twice a week.

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