Royal management threatens shutdown.

LONDON--While building continues on the Royal Opera House site in London's Covent Garden, ROH management made a shocking announcement on September 9 that it would cease operating on January 18, 1999. The Opera House, which closed for renovation in July 1997, is scheduled to reopen in December 1999, in time for the millennial celebrations. But since the ROH management company responsible for the building and its two companies, the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera, is technically bankrupt, there can be no performances next year.

At least that was the threat. Sir Colin Southgate, the chairman of the ROH board, called all 500 staff to a September 9 meeting to give them a deadline of October 26, 1998, for new work agreements. These include eliminating redundancies as well as establishing new contracts requiring more flexible working hours and lower fees for TV, video, and radio recordings. The opera chorus will be disbanded and singers rehired on a freelance basis. The corps de ballet is safe however, if the unions meet the October deadline.

Southgate announced that the ROH had already incurred a 13 million [pounds sterling] deficit during the first year of the opera house's closure, a debt predicted to rise to 25 million [pounds sterling] by its reopening. Seasons by both companies at other theaters had been financially (though not artistically) damaging. The Royal Opera's scheduled April-June 1999 season at the newly rebuilt Sadler's Wells theater has been canceled. The Royal Ballet's Sadler's Wells season in July 1999 is scheduled to go ahead, provided the new working conditions are agreed upon.

The news for the dancers is not as bad as for the singers and backstage staff. Both companies, however, will lose performances when the Royal Opera House reopens. New productions and performances are to be reduced by one-third, with 120 ballet and 100 opera performances a year. Numbers will go up again though, once more funds are forthcoming. The proposed restructuring is designed to satisfy the government, the Arts Council, and the requirements of Sir Richard Eyre's report on the future of lyric theater in London. The culture secretary, Chris Smith, has promised an undisclosed increase in the ROH's annual 14.4 million [pounds sterling] grant once management is in place.