Covent Garden cuts top rate for new season

 
Opera players: star Placido Domingo and ROH chief executive Tony Hall
16 March 2012

As rumours swirl that George Osborne is set to cut the top rate of tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent, could he be borrowing his economic theories from the Royal Opera House?

Covent Garden has just announced its new 2012/13 season. Despite the austerity cuts within its own budget, after it lost 15 per cent of its Arts Council grant last year, it is slashing the top-price tickets on popular operas from £210 to £175.

The opera house, run by Tony Hall, says its new season will be a mix of new and popular opera and ballet. There are a range of opera redistribution initiatives for the economically challenged, including cheap student ticket deals and special matinees for first-time family visitors, and an ever-expanding programme of live performances relayed into cinemas.

However, the banking classes, some facing their own economic squeeze, are being appeased. Tickets for revivals, such as Tosca, have seen their prices drop by £35 in the top bracket. That price drop is being made up for by ticket prices elsewhere.

The Royal Opera House only pinpointed one price rise, that for Placido Domingo singing in Verdi’s Nabucco next year, which has a special tycoon rate of £225 for top-price tickets. “He has never sung that role before so interest would be massive,” says a spokesman, though the other price hikes were not revealed.

Make a date with history prize, says Michael Gove

Sharpen your pencils, children:Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has launched a new prize for historical fiction for secondary school pupils. The winners will be announced this summer at the Chalke Valley History Festival in Wiltshire, which organised the prize.

“Some people who have a problem with history, in particular narrative history, parody it and say it’s ‘all 1066 and all that’, it’s all dates, kings and queens,” said Gove at yesterday’s launch at Waterstones in Piccadilly. “Of course you need knowledge and you need chronology. But you also need, if it’s going to come alive, imagination.”

The other judges are historian James Holland and children’s author Michael Morpurgo, the man behind War Horse. So no pressure then.

*At this week’s wake for Marie Colvin at the Frontline Club, Dutch journalist Minka Nijhuis recalled how she and Colvin and another female journalist were the only media to stay in the UN compound in East Timor with 1,500 refugees rather than leave them at the mercy of Indonesian militias. She also recalled Colvin returning to her hotel room, which the militias had looted selectively. “What kind of militiamen are they?” said Colvin. “They left my flak jacket but took my lacy underwear.”

Obama’s just bowled Ruthie over

President Obama will be pleased to hear that one of Britain’s top chefs has given Wednesday’s state dinner for David Cameron the seal of approval. The River Café’s Ruth Rogers, pictured, attended the banquet with her son, Roo — her husband, architect Richard Rogers, was away on business.

“It was a brilliant atmosphere from the minute we walked in,” she tells the Londoner. “A great mix of people — musicians, politicians, journalists, athletes — and my hero [Apple’s design chief] Sir Jonathan Ive.”

What about the food, which included locally sourced halibut and bison? “Delicious, sophisticated American,” says Ruthie. Obama’s chef will be happy.

Too cold for the Tories

YESTERDAY was the 50th anniversary of the Orpington by-election at which Liberal Eric Lubbock gave Harold Macmillan a nasty shock with a landslide win. Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, says the clincher in his famous victory was “the heated Tory caravan”.

“It was bitterly cold during the March of 1962, and the Conservative candidate spent most of the campaign sitting in a heated caravan, which didn’t go down too well on the doorstep,” says the 83-year-old at a celebration dinner at the National Liberal club this week. “In contrast, we were out in all weathers.”

There was no sign of the current Tory MP for Orpington, Jo Johnson, younger brother of Boris.

Foyles joins the Raymond set

Talk about a turn-up for the books. The next owner of Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road will be ... Soho Estates, property arm of the late porn baron Paul Raymond’s empire, whose chairman is former mayoral candidate Steven Norris. Foyles will remain in occupation until 2013, when it will move to 107-109 Charing Cross Road.

Meanwhile, a film of Raymond’s life is being made, starring Steve Coogan. Earlier this week Coogan, in an authentic Raymond fur coat, paraded a topless model in a glitzy red cowboy hat through the streets of Soho on horseback. Surely it’s not too late to give the equally flamboyant Norris a walk-on part?

*Hugh Grant reveals his ideal bedmate on tonight’s Graham Norton show. “I’ve reached that stage in life where I need a flash car to keep my spirits up,” he says of his Ferrari. “I’m not proud of that but I’m very, very in love with it. It’s blue and beautiful, there’s nothing I don’t love about it. If I could get it into bed with me, I would.”

*Philosopher AC Grayling describes Rowan Williams, who is stepping down, as “a very civilised individual and my kind of Archbishop”. John Sentamu may have blown his chances with his Sun on Sunday column, leaving the smart money to be on Bishop of Norwich Graham James.

How caution nearly stopped Dad’s Army

MARK Thompson, director- general of the BBC, admits the corporation doesn’t always get it right when it comes to comedy. “Dad’s Army nearly didn’t happen,” he said yesterday at a service for David Croft, the sitcom’s creator, who died last September.

Speaking at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Thompson said the BBC had “an almost unblemished record over the years of making the wrong judgment calls about comedy, at least at first”. In this case, Croft was told: “You cannot take the Mickey out of Britain’s finest hour.”

Audience research proved “iffy” so Croft abandoned the idea. “Even John Le Mesurier [who played Sergeant Wilson] predicted that the programme would be ‘an absolute disaster’.”

With Clive Dunn and Bill Pertwee present, Thompson added: “The public begged to differ. Launched to audiences of eight million in 1968, by 1972 Dad’s Army was regularly being watched by double that — and it’s still going strong on BBC2.”

*Observer commentator Nick Cohen has a new book out, You Can’t Read About This, on the limits of free speech in the Western world, but he’s struggling to get his own voice heard. His Twitter account has been suspended twice in a week.

“The irony is that in his new book, Cohen lauds Twitter for promoting freedom of expression. This is how it treats him,” says top tweeting lawyer David Allen Green.

A tale of explosive confusion

A party at Quaglino’s last night for Nicolas Kent, who leaves the Tricycle Theatre next month after 28 years in charge. A filmed tribute by Alan Rickman advised that if Kent ever invited you to the country and suggested “a shortish walk” to ignore him or “You will end in traction”.

Kent revealed how his final production, The Bomb, a cycle of 10 short plays, prompted a call to the finance officer one night from the FBI, asking: “This nuclear material you’re making in New York. Is it fissile or not?” She said, “I’m not making any nuclear material in New York.” The FBI said: “We have evidence you are. We have a cheque.”

It was a cheque to one of The Bomb’s American playwrights. “That $2,000 wasn’t going to quite make a bomb,” said Kent.

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