Product Description

At the end of the Second World War, the great economist Maynard Keynes called for public money to be poured into an Arts Council and Royal Opera House, as a means to revive our national fortunes and spirit through the English culture and language. At a time when bread was being rationed and London was a bombsite, money was found to create an opera and ballet company.

Half a century later, with the country at its peak of prosperity, the Royal Opera House was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy. England's cultural renaissance was over and multiculturalism, political correctness and European integration were throttling the very notion of Englishness. What went wrong?

Covent Garden, The Untold Story relates, through the rise and fall of the Royal Opera House, the fruitless struggle to turn England into a cultural nation. Norman Lebrecht reports at vivid firsthand the unvarnished history of a vital institution which was designed to define a nation -- and spectacularly failed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #254003 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Observer
Lebrecht tells it vividly, as he stalks the wings and corridors of the beleaguered building

About the Author
Norman Lebrecht's weekly column in the Daily Telegraph has been described as "required reading for anyone interested in music". He is the author of the international bestsellers The Maestro Myth and When the Music Stops, as well as critical studies on Mahler and 20th century music. He has made many television and radio documentaries for the BBC and lectures extensively around the world. He is also the founder-editor of a major series of composer biographies.

Customer Reviews

Lebrecht from the audience perspective
Norman Lebrecht is a mixed bag from my perspective as an audience-oriented classical music activist and writer. I'm among those who seek reforms in the encrusted music establishment. My motivation is to work with other music lovers to stop, and if possible, reverse the decline in classical music.

There's no doubt about it. Lebrecht is a superachiever who operates at an intensity beyond normal humans: writing regular columns and negotiating their wide dissemination, travelling, researching a myriad of topics, interviewing and being interviewed, and somehow finding time to write books on complex subjects on the fly. The "normal" writer may be exhausted after three years' work on one book - no other duties intruding.

The old concept of noblesse oblige suggests that people with special gifts have an implied obligation to higher purposes in society. Admittedly that's now routinely violated in the U.S. But from cultured Britain we Americans somehow expect more.

There's wide agreement about Lebrecht's facile pen, his colorful, often big-theme topics, and his willingness to be candid and provocative. As other commentators note, however, Lebrecht's motives, judgment, and net effect on the world of music and culture are widely questioned. My rather superficial quest in exploring Covent Garden (looking at reform angles) convinced me that Lebrecht did much scholarly digging. He unearthed apparently accurate, if painful and politically incorrect background. But why and for whom did he do it?

Lebrecht is unquestionably fascinated by and committed to the arts. But my conclusion is that elitist ego, the ability to tread where others fear to go, to create flamboyance for its own sake, and to sustain his reputation and sell books (income)are a large part of Lebrecht's goal for Covent Garden. I and surely many British music lovers might have welcomed more constructive motives.

Those conclusions are partly supported by Lebrecht's lack of interest in those areas where the UK is an international leader in the quest to increase the vitality and outreach of classical music: ClassicFM radio, John McLaren's bold venture in supporting competitive awards for music that is meaningful to larger audiences, and the revitalized London Symphony.

So I'll continue to dip into Lebrecht for information, but not for inspiration.