English National Opera's new director takes job share in New Zealand

Telegraph

28-06-2025

English National Opera is facing calls to cancel the contract of its incoming music director after it emerged that he has also accepted another music directorship in New Zealand.
ENO announced in May that André de Ridder, a German conductor, would be its music director designate from September, taking up the post in Autumn 2027.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) announced this week that Mr de Ridder would be its music director designate, formally starting in September 2027.
'I am very excited and feel truly honoured to have been chosen to become this orchestra's next music director and to learn about and contribute to New Zealand's unique musical and cultural scenery,' he said in a statement posted on the NZSO's Facebook page.
But Norman Lebrecht, a leading music expert and former Telegraph columnist, dismissed the dual appointments as 'absurd' because of the huge distance and an 11-hour time difference.
He told The Telegraph: 'New Zealand is the other side of the clock. Basically, you can't communicate.
'With a company in crisis, as ENO is, you absolutely need a firm hand on the tiller. You've got to have a decision-maker there.'
If the second job was in the same time zone, ENO could call its music director, Mr Lebrecht said, adding: 'But if he's in New Zealand they can't actually have proper discussions because it'll be 11 o'clock at night there or 11 o'clock at night our time.
'The whole position is absurd.'
Writing on his Slipped Disc website, Mr Lebrecht said: 'This ought to be an easy commute, right? And if something goes wrong in London or Auckland, Ridder will be right there to put it right… ENO should terminate his contract before they look like a total shambles.'
'Unmitigated piffle'
Observers argued that although international conductors take different posts, an opera company leaves little time for a second job.
ENO has lurched from one crisis to another, despite the award-winning excellence of many of its productions.
Years of turmoil have seen strikes and protests over cutbacks, while fears for its survival were sparked by Arts Council England 's plan to pull its funding unless the company found a base beyond the capital.
ENO's forthcoming season, beginning in September, will feature 12 productions and concerts in London and Manchester, both new productions and revivals.
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's political satire, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, will be staged in 2026, marking Mr de Ridder's first engagement as music director designate.
He is currently general music director of Theater Freiburg in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He previously conducted for ENO the premieres of Gerald Barry's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant in 2005, described by The Telegraph as 'a repellent opera', and Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden in 2013, dismissed by this newspaper as 'unmitigated piffle'.
Mr de Ridder's representative, Anna Wetherell of HarrisonParrott, the classical music agency, said the two jobs 'don't really coincide'.
She added: 'New Zealand have their winter festival, which is in August each year, when ENO is not operating.
'With New Zealand, he has signed up to three seasons - [from] March to December 2027, 2028 and 2029 - so he probably will do… two weeks at the start of the year, three in the middle and three at the end.'
Asked where his home will be, she said: 'It's unclear for now. He might move somewhere in the UK.'
Mr Lebrecht described ENO as 'a shadow of its former self' and noted that the previous music director had said the job is untenable: 'This is the music director of English National Opera. English.
'Yet ENO had to go to Germany because we don't have any conductors who are unemployed and rather good.'
John Allison, the editor of Opera magazine and a Telegraph music critic, said: 'People may say that running a national company leaves little time for anything else. Sadly, through little fault of their own, ENO is not exactly the busiest national full-time opera company.
'But it's not a vote of confidence either in where André de Ridder thinks ENO might be in a couple of years time when he starts in New Zealand. It's not impossible for him to do both jobs, but it's not necessarily an ideal look.
'ENO hasn't been out of crisis for a very long time. It's a different kind of a crisis at the moment because nobody quite knows where it's going, allegedly to Manchester. But, who knows if the Arts Council, which imposed this on them, will still be here in 2029 when the move is supposed to take place? It's certainly got an identity crisis and it needs vision.'
'Strong leadership'
An ENO spokesman said Mr de Ridder was appointed 'following a rigorous process', adding: 'We are all looking forward to working together with him over the coming years.
'It is absolutely standard for leading conductors to have more than one post internationally.
'It is simply not true that ENO is in a state of crisis. With strong leadership in place, and a clear plan for the future delivering programmes in both London and Greater Manchester, as we announced in May, ENO is moving forward with an exciting 2025/26 season.
'This includes 12 productions and concerts across London and Manchester, expansion of our work through new broadcast partnerships and learning and participation programmes and the extension of our offer of free tickets for under 21s.'