English National Opera has postponed its return to the stage of the London Coliseum, its home in the British capital. London's Daily Telegraph and BBC News report that technical difficulties in completing the theater's £41 million renovation led the company to postpone the restored opera house's inaugural production — a Peter Sellars staging of John Adams's Nixon in China — by two weeks to Saturday 21 February.
The Guardian reports that the postponement is due to numerous small technical problems rather than any single large mishap. ENO artistic director Seán Doran told the newspaper and the BBC that, had the company held to the original reopening date, "there was a serious risk that both Nixon in China and The Rhinegold would be artistically compromised or even lost completely — this is not a risk we are prepared to take." The latter opera, the first installment in a much-anticipated production by director Phyllida Lloyd of Wagner's Ring cycle, will open on Monday 23 February as originally scheduled. Nixon in China, on the other hand, is losing five of its nine scheduled performances.
The Telegraph says that the estimated cost of the delay is about £200,000.
ENO has been working on the renovation for three years and closed the Coliseum last June for the major construction work. Since that time the company has given concert performances of opera at other locations, principally the Barbican Centre in central London.
— Matthew Westphal
"ENO delays its Coliseum comeback"
BBC News Online - 12 January 2004
"Opera opening delayed"
Maev Kennedy - The Guardian [London] - 13
January 2004
"ENO delays shows after £41m revamp"
Nigel Reynolds - The Daily Telegraph [London] - 13
January 2004
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