‘That make-or-break feeling? I love it’: can André de Ridder put ENO back on its feet?

Budgets have been slashed, morale is through the floor and the company has been forced to find a second base in Manchester. But the new musical director is up for a challenge. We meet the man with the hardest job in musicAndré de Ridder is either brave or stupid. He has accepted the role as the music director of English National Opera – its chief conductor and keeper of its musical flame. He will take up the role formally in 2027. The post has been empty for several anguished years, sparked by Arts Council England’s 2022 announcement that the company would lose all its funding unless it moved out of London. Amid a fightback that, to cut a long story short, resulted in the company retaining a foothold in the London Coliseum, but partially moving to Manchester, De Ridder’s predecessor, Martyn Brabbins, abruptly quit in 2023, saying that the company was heading into “managed decline”. Brabbins’s predecessor, Mark Wigglesworth, had also resigned suddenly in 2016, saying ENO wa