Scaled-Down English National Opera Tracks A More Modest Path

For a thrusting and hungry tyro MD, Edward Gardner strikes a strangely wary note. He talks about the need for adventure, but enterprise is tempered with realism. ENO gives fewer performances now than at any time since the company moved to the London Coliseum 40 years ago. A playbill that once boasted more than 200 performances of more than 20 works is now reduced to about 115 of 12-13 main-stage titles.