Page 224 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

music director of English National Opera. As a member of its so-called “powerhouse”, he led ENO
for 14 years, alongside his old friend from Cambridge, David Pountney, who was artistic director,
and the general director Peter Jonas.

When Elder took over at ENO he was just 32. It was a different era, when women conductors
barely existed, and grand maestri of the podium still terrified orchestras. Did he ever throw any
tantrums? “Look, it’s absolutely crucial that an orchestral conductor never has a tantrum, right?
But there are circumstances when it’s absolutely right to pretend that you’re having a tantrum. You
have to use every sort of approach to get that special performance everyone wants. You’ve got to be
a leader, and it takes time to work out how to do that. You need to build a relationship with an
orchestra that is based on psychology, on humanity, and humour, and you need all these things
because you need to engage their fantasy and imagination.”

Members of Equity protest against ENO's planned move to Manchester

When I ask Elder about the state of his old company, his face clouds. “I’m sorry and sad that my
old company at the Coliseum is so vulnerable at the moment. Because they prove all the time that
theatre done at the highest level can really touch people’s lives.”

Does he think the plan to create a base for the company in Manchester has legs? “I’m not sure,” he
says after a long pause.

“I think it’s a very big undertaking, and Manchester has never been a great city for opera, and I
wonder if all the necessary groundwork is being done. It will need leadership and money and
patience, and the kind of long-term thinking which seems to be in such short supply nowadays.”

Certainly, Elder has done his bit for classical music at the grass-roots level. He tells me how he
wanted “to show what we thought a 21st-century orchestra should be. And that’s something much
bigger than just playing concerts. We thought, if we can really connect to people’s lives in this city,
then we’re really onto something.”