A chorus of despair

The chorus of English National Opera staged a walk-out last week. And the institution faces a massive deficit. Dennis Marks, the company's former general director, asks: what on earth is going on at the Coliseum?

Where would opera be without irony? Last week, the chorus of English National Opera protested against a package of compulsory redundancies by walking out of Berlioz's The Trojans. They substituted, rather appropriately, a free performance of Verdi's Requiem at a nearby church. That same night, Channel 4 notched up a considerable success with its new series Operatunity. Two engaging amateur singers won the prize of appearing in Verdi's Rigoletto at English National Opera. These tiros had been supported, trained and transformed by company members who, in a year's time, may well be out of a job.

What on earth is going on? We know that ENO is facing a massive accumulated deficit. We know that a management consultant has prepared a rescue package and submitted it to the Arts Council. The company's chairman, Martin Smith, has hinted at what ENO must do in return: "In order to secure the company's future, radical changes are required to both its operating model and staffing structure." Thanks to a leaked document in The Independent on Sunday, we now have an English translation of Smith's statement. Not only will a third of the chorus lose their permanent jobs, similar cuts will be made throughout the company. The ensemble will be fragmented and the repertoire slashed because, in Smith's words, "our fixed costs are simply too high, and some of our employment contracts no longer reflect best market practice."

Remember that we are talking about people who produce artistic masterpieces, not microchips. I have known this company for 40 years, as a member of the audience, as a broadcaster, and for four years as its general director. When I left ENO in 1997, a colleague asked me whether one day I might care to join another opera company. I couldn't think of one. ENO is unique. Where else in Europe can one find 200 singers and orchestral players, with the musical, dramatic, technical and administrative staff to support them, performing the full range of the operatic repertoire throughout the year at prices almost everyone can afford? What can substitute for one of the last large-scale operatic ensembles left in Europe?

The word "ensemble" is at the core of the debate about ENO's future. What does it mean, and why does it provoke such intense emotions whenever it seems to be threatened? At one level, the answer is simple. An ensemble performs together. It can be half a dozen actors touring Strindberg in the provinces; or a band of period- instrument specialists bringing baroque concertos back to life; or a company of 500 in an Edwardian theatre in London's West End. Size doesn't matter, but shared values, collective experience, training, exploring and changing together – these are what count. And these values are now under threat. It has happened already in Britain's regional repertory theatres, where companies have been forced to put their actors on to short-term contracts, and seduce television stars to enhance their box office.

I had the good fortune to receive my artistic education in London in the 1960s, courtesy of three great ensembles. The RSC was at the Aldwych, performing Pinter alongside the Bard, while at the Old Vic the fledgling National Theatre company played Brecht and Ibsen as well as Shaw and Shakespeare. At Lilian Baylis's sister theatre of Sadler's Wells, the forerunner of ENO sandwiched Janacek between Verdi and Mozart. The performers – artists such as Ian Holm, David Warner, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Norman Bailey and Colin Davis – have all subsequently become stars, but when I first peered down on them from the six- shilling gallery seats, they were team players, nurtured in the values of the ensemble, and passing those values on to others.

The plays of Shakespeare and Chekhov and Brecht were introduced to the world by ensembles. Collective creation, mutual trust, shared sensibilities – all these essential interpretive skills are fostered in the ensemble. This is no less true in opera. The great German companies of the Fifties and early Sixties fostered the talents of Fritz Wunderlich, Elisabeth Grümmer and Gottlob Frick – performing, like their ENO counterparts, in the vernacular. John Tomlinson, Graham Clark and Anne Evans may have ascended to leading roles at Bayreuth, but they learned their Wagner on the nursery slopes of ENO, with staff conductors, répétiteurs and house producers who had the time and patience (and the permanent contracts) to spend two years preparing the first English-language Ring. Comparing ensemble training to short-term guest contracts is like matching a market garden to a greenhouse.

But what about the chorus and the orchestra, 150 human beings whom the chairman of ENO describes as "fixed costs" that are "simply too high"? Is it essential to keep 60 choristers on permanent contract, rather than hire them by the season like Glyndebourne, or supplement a smaller core with extras as required? Last season, there were seven new ENO productions, including War and Peace, Lulu and The Rake's Progress. Opera is theatre, and the chorus is expected to arrive at rehearsal with their parts learned, just like actors. So musical preparation often takes place months before the production enters the rehearsal room. Reduce the chorus and you are faced with a choice – either the punishing expense of keeping casual choristers on hold for such rehearsals, or a two-tier chorus, half of whom are only half-rehearsed. If you are performing Parsifal or Elektra or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the same goes for the orchestra. It is one thing to mount a spectacular production for a couple of weeks in Salzburg. It is quite another to integrate it into a repertory running throughout the year and serving an audience of 400,000.

Small wonder, then, that when Martin Smith finally addressed his employees a few weeks ago, he made it clear that the company that returns to the redeveloped Coliseum would be very different from the one that I knew in the 1970s, and had the privilege to lead in the 1990s. The leaked proposal gives us a hint of what Smith's "more flexible and stable future" will look like. A 25 per cent reduction in performances, fewer new productions, a much smaller chorus, a reduced ensemble of principals, an orchestra employing more deputies and stand-ins. If we are very lucky, it will look like a cheaper version of Glyndebourne.

When I think of my 16-year-old self in the gods at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells, I feel a deep sense of guilt. My generation was lucky. Our artistic future was secured by visionaries such as Lord Goodman and Jennie Lee. My children benefited from their investment in ensembles. But we have been careless with their children's future. We have entrusted it to those whose only vision is the bottom line. I have no doubt that the new model ENO will be flexible and stable. Whether I shall wish to see opera there is, like everything else about the company's strategy, still open to doubt.

...But does size really matter?

ENO's chorus makes a wonderful sound, says Robert Maycock but perhaps management is right to pare it down after all

When the chorus of English National Opera sang in a free concert last week instead of going on stage, they delivered more than a publicity coup. They served up one of London's most rousing musical occasions. So heady was the atmosphere as they performed Verdi's Requiem with top-class soloists, but without an orchestra, that there's a rumour that somebody on the board now wants to keep the full chorus and scrap the house orchestra instead.

But what was it really like on the night? If music is the yardstick, ENO's orchestra can sleep soundly. Nobody will ever again want to listen to Verdi accompanied by organ and piano. But the music-making was a success, and not least the chorus. Usually, the Requiem is performed by large amateur choruses. A mix of trained and untrained singers, they have a different tone quality from professionals, more rounded and less energetically projected. Hearing a smaller body of professionals is a rare experience. There is a better balance between the parts, and a more direct dramatic impact. ENO's chorus has performed this work in a staged version, so it knew the music well and delivered the goods. This was a fast and furious performance rather than a subtle one, fair enough for the occasion.

But opera choruses are strange beasts. Members of professional concert choruses are chosen for blend as well as vocal quality. Opera choruses are too, or should be, but they often sound like a collection of competing egos, not to mention vibratos. This is because taking a place in a chorus is often a career move for solo singers.

While smaller companies do what they can with their resources, the bigger ones have a full-time chorus. What varies is the size: Opera North has 36 members, about half the size of ENO's. Size is the issue in the ENO dispute, not quality. The Coliseum is huge and it can take big choruses, but much of the repertoire doesn't need the full strength. So the company reckons it can live with a smaller core chorus, which would be boosted by freelance extras when necessary.

Sorry chaps, but the audience wouldn't notice the difference. London is packed with good professional singers keen to get work. They won't say so now out of solidarity, but give them a couple of months, if the ENO chorus is cut, and they will be casting an eye towards the Coliseum. The management has given an unintended boost to the case for keeping the chorus intact by mishandling the redundancy question and winning the chorus sympathy. But it's a human case, not a musical one.

Meanwhile, everyone looks on in wonder as ENO nudges the panic button and gets millions out of the Arts Council in return for a few economies. Ask a composer or a jazz musician what the funds might do instead, and you can count on a more creative answer than propping up institutions that have almost forgotten what it is to create.