When the English National Opera performed before 10,000 rock fans at last summer’s Glastonbury Festival, it seemed to be that rarest of occasions: a coming together of high art and popular culture with no one getting so much as their feelings hurt. But ENO chairman Martin Smith may have rolled back much of the good will the performance built up with his recent comment that the concertgoers ‘hardly knew how to spell opera’. “Mr Smith has made a number of gaffes during his tenure. He has often been regarded as the source of ENO’s travails, accused of importing to the company a high-handed, bullish approach imported from banking, and appointing an artistic director too weak to stand up to him.