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Covent Garden: The Untold Story - Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945-2000
 
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Covent Garden: The Untold Story - Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945-2000 (Hardcover)
by Norman Lebrecht (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  (1 customer review)

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Product details
  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (18 Sep 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0684851431
  • ISBN-13: 978-0684851433
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,028,178 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
    (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)
  • Other Editions: Paperback (New Ed) |  Library Binding  |  All Editions


Product Description
Observer
Lebrecht tells it vividly, as he stalks the wings and corridors of the beleaguered building --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
At the end of the Second World War, the great economist Maynard Keynes issued a warning that Britain was facing 'a financial Dunkirk' and entering its darkest hour of debt. In almost the same breath, he called for public money to be poured into an Arts Council and Royal Opera House, under his own chairmanship, to revive our national fortunes and spirit through the English culture and language. At a time when bread was being rationed and London was a bombsite, money was found to create an opera and ballet company. Half a century later, with Britain at its peak of prosperity, the Royal Opera House was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy. Four chief executives came and went in 18 months; the press and Parliament roared at the comic opera. England's cultural renaissance was over. COVENT GARDEN, THE UNTOLD STORY relates, through the rise and fall of the Royal Opera House, the fruitless struggle to turn England into a cultural nation. Using private archives and access ! to key players, Lebrecht reveals hidden links between the opera house and the people in power. It is a story of scandal and celebrities and uncovers fresh aspects of Fonteyn, Callas, Nureyev, Solti, Kiri te Kanawa and Diana, Princess of Wales. Above all, it seeks to discover how over half a century England rose from heroic poverty to heartless wealth.

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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Lebrecht from the audience perspective, 13 Jul 2004
Norman Lebrecht is a mixed bag from my perspective as an audience-oriented classical music activist and writer. I'm among those who seek reforms in the encrusted music establishment. My motivation is to work with other music lovers to stop, and if possible, reverse the decline in classical music.

There's no doubt about it. Lebrecht is a superachiever who operates at an intensity beyond normal humans: writing regular columns and negotiating their wide dissemination, travelling, researching a myriad of topics, interviewing and being interviewed, and somehow finding time to write books on complex subjects on the fly. The "normal" writer may be exhausted after three years' work on one book - no other duties intruding.

The old concept of noblesse oblige suggests that people with special gifts have an implied obligation to highe