One of the opera world’s behind-the-scenes stars is leaving it all behind this summer. Peter Jonas, who has led English National Opera and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera over the course of a 21-year career as a general manager, will retire in September at the comparatively young age of 59. “Intellectual rigour and confrontational energy” are terms often used to describe Jonas’s management style, and it’s no coincidence that his happiest years came with the relatively small and provincial Munich company.