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Tony Hall, the Executive Director of the Royal Opera House faces two challenges: to open up the Ballet and Opera to a wider audience, and to identify a new generation of creative leaders with the flair to bring their ideas to reality. He explained his strategy to Brendan McCarthy...

Tony Hall's office looks out over Covent Garden Market; in summer one of the most popular open spaces in central London. Visitors arrive in their thousands, shop, watch the street entertainers, and - for the most part - turn away before they reach the revolving doors that lead to the Royal Opera House. Attracting this potential audience is one of Tony Hall's biggest challenges, and it is one in which he must succeed if the House is to flourish. History has bequeathed a mixed legacy - a distinguished building, but one that shows its best face to a minor side street, rather than to the life that throbs at its back door. It could stand as a metaphor for some of the problems of the institution itself.

It is nearly a year since Tony Hall came to the Opera House from the BBC, where he had been Director of News. At the time of his appointment, some newspaper columnists used such epithets of him as 'grey', 'anonymous', 'bureaucratic', or 'smooth'. Taken together they miss something significant about Hall. He is emollient and hymns his organisation's virtues, in the way that any chief executive does. But there is also an almost boyish enthusiasm for the House itself, coupled with a willingness to experiment and to push the envelope. He has a sharp intellect together with formidable lobbying and political skills.

When Tony Hall was a working journalist, his peers rated him highly for his creativity. His leadership of BBC News was more contentious. There were difficult changes to manage; many journalists found them deeply unsettling. In retrospect it is easier to acknowledge his creativity as a senior manager. Hall's record at the BBC is an important key to the way he manages at Covent Garden.

The Opera House receives £21 million from public funds. In return it is expected to be socially inclusive, and to engage new audiences. BBC News faced a similar challenge in the mid 1990s. It had begun to lose touch with important strands of British society. Programmes were, for the most part, reaching the middle-aged and the middle classes. That had to change. Hall's response was far-sighted. He launched the radio station 5 Live, the internet site BBC News Online, and the TV channel News 24. All were important in re-establishing BBC News's credibility with a broad audience.

Hall always had an enthusiasm for opera, but less obviously so for dance. That has changed. One of the first pieces he saw after he arrived was Duo:logue, the collaboration

"The audience that came that night was younger, multi-ethnic, they booked very late, and they were noisy. It was wonderful" on Duo:logue

between Wayne MacGregor's Random Dance and the Royal Ballet. He liked it. But there was something else. "The audience that came that night was younger, multi-ethnic, they booked very late, and they were noisy. It was wonderful".

In his first months at Covent Garden, Tony Hall singled out Deborah Bull, giving her responsibility for programming at the Clore Studio and Linbury Theatre. It was a good move, he says. Bull is a businesswoman and an entrepreneur, arguably the first of her breed in the Royal Ballet since its founder, Dame Ninette de Valois. Hall himself is not an instinctive entrepreneur, but at the BBC he liked to surround himself with people who were. Now he is repeating the experience at the Opera House. "When I put Jenny Abramsky in charge of starting 5Live, I spent hours with her. What was I doing? Supporting her in what we wanted to achieve with 5Live. I feel that's what we have to do here too; pick the ideas, and then back people who can actually deliver them".

The Arts Council provides no funding for Deborah Bull's area. The £21 million a year it gives the Opera House is ring-fenced for productions on the main stage. What happens in the Clore and Linbury, in effect the House's creative laboratory, has to be funded from the ROH's own resources. That means fund-raising and finding private sponsors. There is an anomaly here. Private arts funding is more easily attracted to the tried and tested, than to the risky and the cutting edge. While Hall acknowledges the difficulty, failure is not an option. Ballet and opera are not dead art forms, he insists. To ensure that they remain vibrant and relevant, it is essential to invest in young creativity, and, if necessary, allow it licence to fail.

The House has been able to help itself. The Bjork concert in mid December sold out within 4 hours. It was not a traditional Opera House audience; most were there for the first time. It was a lively night and, most importantly, it generated a net profit of £40,000 for the ROH, useful extra funding for the Opera and Ballet. Not surprisingly there will be more concerts like it. The tea dances in the Floral Hall, originally a project for the summer months, have brought a quite different audience. "People have said to me, 'you've got to keep this going'. And we are going to keep them going".

Tony Hall spent much time in his early months getting to know the Royal Ballet. He has been struck by the dancers' belief in their art, and their passion to share it with a wider public. "They're absolutely at one with what I am trying to do", he says. Before Christmas he listened to presentations by members of

"I'd really like to be able to do more for dancers, who have given so much."

the company, who are studying for degrees linked to Middlesex University. Some of the dancers' projects were choreographic, others about arts administration. The experience alerted him to the difficulties dancers face, when they have to stop performing. "I'd really like to be able to do more for dancers, who have given so much. They have to be able to see another life in which they can use their skills. For us this is not merely a moral responsibility, it's a creative responsibility as well". By this Hall means that it is in the Opera House's long-term interests to encourage members of the Ballet to develop careers in arts administration. He intends Deborah Bull's appointment to be a strong signal to other dancers that they can continue to contribute to their art, when their performing lives are done.

He supports Ross Stretton's strategy of bringing in new choreographers; refreshing the repertory is as important as preserving the Royal Ballet's heritage. He seems sympathetic to the suggestion that the Royal Ballet, should, as the Australian Ballet did under Stretton, collaborate with other dance

"The boundaries between the Opera House and the public, other artists and other art institutions must become much more fluid."

companies. "The Opera House is much less something that is 'plonked down' and an island to itself. The boundaries between the Opera House and the public, other artists and other art institutions must become much more fluid".

When he became Executive Director, he decided that ticket prices for 54% of all seats would be held flat. He is optimistic that he can peg the prices at this level for a further two years. He would like to revive special nights or weeks at lower prices, to attract new audiences ("nothing to announce, but a lot of plotting and talking to people"). Crucially he has decided to build on the Piazza experience. In May the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet will be shown on a big screen at Victoria Park in East London's Tower Hamlets. If that is successful, there are plans for further big screens throughout the UK, and there is also a possibility that a cinema chain may show Royal Opera House performances free of charge.

For a third year, the House has had a small surplus in its published accounts, and it is likely to do so again in the current year. It leaves Hall with room for movement denied to his predecessors. The era of crisis management is over, and it is now possible to plan in a disciplined way for the future. Unlike his predecessors as Executive Director, he does not have an explicitly artistic responsibility. But it would be a mistake to see him as out of the creative loop. He has formidable experience of managing creativity, an asset in a very traditional milieu, prone to being mesmerised by "the way we do things around here". More to the point, he has already been in place for longer than some of his colleagues. Ross Stretton arrived last August; Tony Pappano, the new Music Director, only arrives this coming autumn, while the Chairman, Sir Colin Southgate, will soon step aside. Hall will have to ease in his successor.

His major challenge, he sees as the

"...the place is awash with ideas. The issue for me is choosing what ideas to back..."

achievement of joined-up management. "There is no problem here with ideas, the place is awash with ideas. The issue for me is choosing what ideas to back, and then giving people the power to go ahead and make things happen". The message has trickled down the organisation already. Pre-publicity for the forthcoming event 'Espana in the works' describes it as 'Joined up opera and ballet'.

One of Hall's other aspirations is to have more of the House's work shown on television. 1.2 million BBC2 viewers saw Don Quixote and The Nutcracker on Christmas Day. He hopes the advent of BBC4 next month will open the way for televising some of the work of the Linbury and the Clore. Looking further ahead, Tony Hall and Ross Stretton have discussed what visiting companies it might be artistically exciting to have visit Covent Garden in 2003 and 2004. There are limited possibilities this year because the resident companies will perform through the summer. Hall hopes that there will be an announcement later in the Spring. He mentions no names, but many dancegoers will feel that a visit from New York City Ballet is seriously overdue. He is equally circumspect on the issue of whether outside promoters will manage these tours. There have been talks with the Hochhausers and with Raymond Gubbay, but nothing has been decided. While it is always a possibility that the Royal Opera House might promote the visiting companies itself, there are issues of risk involved. Some risks are better managed by a promoter than by the House itself.

There will be no early appointment of a music director at the Royal Ballet to replace Andrea Quinn, Hall says. Ross Stretton will work with several conductors, and a decision is unlikely before the autumn at the very earliest. Tony Pappano, the incoming Music Director, will have to be party to the eventual decision.

Tony Hall, it is clear, sees a distinctive part for the Royal Ballet in introducing the House and its work to a new public. There is something intriguing about how dance has been more of a pathfinder in this respect than opera. Hall has seized gratefully on the dancers' identification with his managerial project. At a time when the Arts Council is determined to peg its grant to the Opera House, and to divert funding away from classical dance, the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera must argue a public case as never before. In Tony Hall they have a practiced advocate.