English National Opera has been thrown into fresh turmoil after its respected music director Mark Wigglesworth unexpectedly resigned because the company was “evolving into something I do not recognise”.
The conductor announced he would step down at the end of the current season.
A spokeswoman said: “He will continue to honour his contractual commitments as a conductor and looks forward to continuing to work with the wonderful musicians of ENO.”
She added that Wigglesworth would not be commenting further at this time.
But in a resignation letter to musicians, seen by the Guardian, Wigglesworth made plain his disillusionment at the direction that ENO was taking: “The company is evolving now into something I do not recognise, and as hard as I have tried to argue to maintain what I believe to be the fundamental pillars of our identity, I have failed to persuade others of this necessity.”
Wigglesworth, 51, has only been in the post since September 2015, succceding Edward Gardner. Previously he has conducted at the Royal Opera House, New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Glyndebourne.
The conductor has found himself with the beleaguered company during a time of huge funding cuts and great turbulence. ENO has lurched from crisis to crisis after the resignation of its chairman and a senior director in January 2015.
At the heart of its present troubles is the need to spend less money after Arts Council England cut its annual grant by 29%, or £5m a year.
Yet, the resignation comes only four days after it looked as if ENO was starting to put its many troubles behind it. The threat of a strike by its chorus, threatened with a pay cut of at least 25%, was only narrowly averted last week.
Cressida Pollock, the former McKinsey consultant who is now ENO’s chief executive, has come up with a new business model which will, in the short term at least, see fewer productions at the company’s home, the London Coliseum.
That Wigglesworth was unhappy was no secret. As ENO’s management negotiated with the chorus’s union Equity over new contracts, Wigglesworth wrote a piece for the Guardian in which he argued that irreparable damage would be caused by cutting the core of the company.
He wrote: “I believe a fresh approach will fail if it compromises the company’s experience and expertise. Without the commitment, sense of ownership, love, and pride of the people who are the essence of ENO artistically, we have no right to ask for any curiosity, loyalty, or passion from our audience. ENO’s identity as a team defines its past and will be its greatest asset in protecting its future.”
Wigglesworth is hugely respected as a conductor. In 2011 he conducted Wagner’s Parsifal for ENO in Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s production, a performance hailed by Tom Service as “one of the finest Wagnerian experiences you could imagine in the theatre”.
It is not the first time Wigglesworth has resigned from a company. In April 2006 he was named Music Director at Brussels’ La Monnaie opera but two years later resigned, five months before formally taking up the position.
In a statement ENO said Wigglesworth’s decision comes “despite the best efforts of the board and senior management to persuade him to remain. We are disappointed that he will not be staying to lead the artistic forces through this particularly challenging period.”
It said Wigglesworth would conduct Jenufa in June and July and return as a guest conductor in 2016/17 season. “Mark is a world class conductor and we look forward to welcoming him back as guest conductor in future years.”
ENO is due to announce details of its new season in early May with eight productions at the Coliseum instead of the 11 productions this year.
In his letter Wigglesworth states: “The plan for the future is one that the Board and Chief Executive have always known I cannot support. I made this clear to them last year. I do not agree with the decision to create a part-time season. But respecting the Board’s desire for unity, it is only fair that I step aside to allow the management team to be united in their decision making process. ENO is a special organisation and plays a crucial role in the cultural life of the UK. I remain passionately keen to help enable it to stay both brilliant and vital in the future. I believe it is no longer possible for me to do this from within the organisation.”
Many observers believe ENO would be in a far stronger position if it had an artistic director in place.
John Berry resigned in July last year but the search for a successor only began this year. It is understood there were more applications than expected, but an appointment could come as early as next month.
While offstage at the ENO it has been turmoil, onstage it has been a period of striking artistic success, including record box-office figures for Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, which is the company’s most successful contemporary opera to date, playing to a 96% occupancy.
The company’s productions of The Force of Destiny, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and The Queen of Spades have all been nominated in the 2016 Olivier awards, due to be given out on 3 April.
