Letter: Opera's silence

Sir: So the first act of the Royal Opera House drama has ended. Lord Chadlington has resigned, the Board has fallen on its collective sword and Mary Allen soldiers on, supported, we learn, by the senior management and artistic direction of the House.

But surely the artistic directors should be taking a close look at their own record. They must be responsible for at least some of the overspending and it was their artistic judgement which selected programmes and productions which played to part-empty houses at The Barbican, Labatt's Apollo and The Shaftsbury, despite widespread publicity and savage cuts in ticket prices.

JUDITH CRUIKSHANK

London