Opera company aims to get you home before the fat lady sings

ENGLISH National Opera is to end some of its performances at 10pm, allowing audience members to get home without running for the train.

Stuart Murphy, ENO chief executive, said research had found that about a third of people at an evening performance go home by train afterwards, many of them to homes many miles from London.

“We march to the beat of the drum of the audience,” he said. “They said we’d like not to have to rush to get our last train. So we want to try it, to see if it works.”

The “Early Nights” scheme will apply to one production per opera but could be increased if it proves popular. The company acted after gauging the mood of audiences. “You see the audience crying, laughing or being grumpy when they leave – hopefully, hardly ever grumpy,” he said.

ENO is the latest organisation to cater for those who like to get home before midnight.

The London Symphony Orchestra ran a “Half Six Fix” series of one-hour concerts for commuters who wanted to get home in good time and older people who do not like to stay out too late.

ENO’S initiative was announced at its 2019-20 season launch, alongside the names of four newly appointed BAME Chorus Fellows: sopranos Isabelle Peters and Julia Daramy-williams, and tenors Satrya Krisna and James Liu.

Mr Murphy said: “I feel uncomfortable as a national organisation having all-white singers. It feels out of date – that’s not what Britain looks like. For years we haven’t been getting the best voices or best performers or best directors to the fore. It’s tended to be dominated by white, middle-aged men.”