The Royal Opera

The Royal Opera is a British opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Along with English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, the company had that title until 1968. It brought a long annual season and consistent management to a house that had previously hosted short seasons under a series of impresarios. Since its inception, it has shared the Royal Opera House with the dance company now known as The Royal Ballet. The two companies belong to an umbrella organisation, the Royal Ballet and Opera, which was known as the Royal Opera House prior to 2024.

When the company was formed, its policy was to perform all works in English, but since the late 1950s most operas have been performed in their original language. From the outset, performers have comprised a mixture of British and Commonwealth singers and international guest stars, but fostering the careers of singers from within the company was a consistent policy of the early years. Among the many guest performers have been Maria Callas, Plácido Domingo, Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Among those who have risen to international prominence from the ranks of the company are Geraint Evans, Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa and Jon Vickers.

The company's growth under the management of David Webster from modest beginnings to parity with the world's greatest opera houses was recognised by the grant of the title "The Royal Opera" in 1968. Under Webster's successor, John Tooley, appointed in 1970, The Royal Opera prospered, but after his retirement in 1988, there followed a period of instability and the closure of the Royal Opera House for rebuilding and restoration between 1997 and 1999. The 21st century has seen a stable managerial regime once more in place. The company has had seven music directors since its inception: Karl Rankl, Rafael Kubelík, Georg Solti, Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Antonio Pappano and Jakub Hrůša.

Between the two World Wars the provision of opera in Great Britain was variable in quality and quantity. At Covent Garden annual international seasons were organised ad hoc. English seasons were even less regular, and poorly supported by the public. ... The Grand Season was largely a social occasion and in practice tended not to include British artists. Artistic achievement was always limited by the paucity of rehearsals that could be called for visiting stars.

From the mid-19th century, opera had been presented on the site of Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, at first by Michael Costa's Royal Italian Opera company. After a fire, the new building opened in 1858 with The Royal English Opera company, which moved there from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. From the 1860s until the Second World War, various syndicates or individual impresarios presented short seasons of opera at the Royal Opera House (so named in 1892), sung in the original language, with star singers and conductors. Pre-war opera was described by the historian Montague Haltrecht as "international, dressy and exclusive". During the war, the Royal Opera House was leased by its owners, Covent Garden Properties Ltd, to Mecca Ballrooms who used it profitably as a dance hall. Towards the end of the war, the owners approached the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes to see if they were interested in taking a lease of the building and staging opera (and ballet) once more. Boosey and Hawkes took a lease, and granted a sub-lease at generous terms to a not-for-profit charitable trust established to run the operation. The chairman of the trust was Lord Keynes.

There was some pressure for a return to the pre-war regime of starry international seasons. Sir Thomas Beecham, who had presented many Covent Garden seasons between 1910 and 1939 confidently expected to do so again after the war. However, Boosey and Hawkes, and David Webster, whom they appointed as chief executive of the Covent Garden company, were committed to presenting opera all year round, in English with a resident company. It was widely assumed that this aim would be met by inviting the existing Sadler's Wells Opera Company to become resident at the Royal Opera House. Webster successfully extended just such an invitation to the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company, but he regarded the sister opera company as "parochial". He was determined to set up a new opera company of his own. The British government had recently begun to give funds to subsidise the arts, and Webster negotiated an ad hoc grant of £60,000 and an annual subsidy of £25,000, enabling him to proceed.

Webster's first priority was to appoint a musical director to build the company from scratch. He negotiated with Bruno Walter and Eugene Goossens, but neither of those conductors was willing to consider an opera company with no leading international stars. Webster appointed a little-known Austrian, Karl Rankl, to the post. Before the war, Rankl had acquired considerable experience in charge of opera companies in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. He accepted Webster's invitation to assemble and train the principals and chorus of a new opera company, alongside a permanent orchestra that would play in both operas and ballets.

The new company made its debut in a joint presentation, together with the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company, of Purcell's The Fairy-Queen on 12 December 1946. The first production by the opera company alone was Carmen, on 14 January 1947. Reviews were favourable. The Times said: