Never Mind the Moon - Hardcover

Isaacs, Jeremy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593043553 ISBN 13: 9780593043554

Publisher: Bantam Press, 1999

Synopsis

In 1988 Jeremy Isaacs took over the job of running the Royal Opera House, and with it he inherited a plan. The Victorian building was to be closed for a massive and controversial redevelopment. Amid the struggle with bureaucracy, the public attack on Covent Garden management and dramatic resignations he brought that plan to fruition.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In the autumn of 1988, Jeremy Isaacs, the founder of Channel Four, took over the job of running the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. He bought to it thirty years' experience as a highly creative producer and executive in telvision which cullminated in the founding of Channel Four. His profound love of music went back to his Glasgow boyhood, but his experience of opera and ballet had hiterto been that of a listener and a spectator. Now he had ultimate responsibility for one of the great opera and ballet houses of the world. Covent Garden was both the showplace and the workshop of two unique art forms that were demanding, glamorous - and expensive.

Over the next nine years he encountered some of the most famous singers, dancers and conductors in the world.In addition he had to work with the diverse talents and temperaments of the House's own permanent workforce of more than 1,000 people. Night after night he saw the miracle of a living work of art take shape, knowing from the inside the skill, labour and sheer physical endurance needed to make it happen. Meanwhile, in offices and committee rooms he and many others struggled simply to keep the whole enterprise afloat. For behind the glittering façade, the constant wearying, heart-breaking endeavour of making ends meet became their daily battle in a political environment that was largely indifferent, often hostile.

Many characters crowd into the story of Jeremy Isaacs' years at Covent Garden and of the events that followed his departure: artists of international renown, musicians, stage crew, managers, fund-raisers, but also politicans and the press. When he went to the House he inherited a plan: the Victorian building was to be closed for a massive and controversial redevelopment. He brought that plan to fruition. The closure of the House and its consequences - the struggle with bureaucracy, the public attacks on Covent Garden's management, the dramatic resignations - form the climax of a story that is packed with drama, has moments of tragedy and is never far from farce. It is a story of artistic triumph against formidable financial constraints, an incomparable record, at the end of one era and start of another, of one of the world's great institutions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593043553
• ISBN 13: 9780593043554
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384