But this will come at a price: from 2004 the number of annual performances

But this will come at a price: from 2004, the number of annual performances at the Coliseum will be around 150, at least 30 fewer than in a typical year.The document reads: “The new model reduces the size of the permanent company by at least 70; it reduces slightly both the number of performances by the ENO each year in the Coliseum and the number and balance of new productions and revivals.” It goes on to add: “From 2004 we plan to give approximately 150 performances each year, made up of six new productions and nine revivals.”The ENO also wants to introduce big screens to broadcast concerts elsewhere in London, and to market its “own label” ENO CDs. I know there are people giving money to the Coliseum or on the board who don’t believe in this tradition of performing in English.”A spokeswoman for the ENO said the company had to address its financial deficit, which had stunted its growth. She described the ENO as “overstretched”, and said proposals to cut back on performances to preserve the quality of its work had been under discussion for several years.The introduction of surtitles was part of the ENO’s commitment to “enhance the experience of enjoying opera”, the spokeswoman said.. There are now three things guaranteed in life: death, taxes and your favourite bands reforming.

The reunion of The Go-Betweens is not the stadium filling, headline gathering event that surrounds the tawdry efforts of the Rolling Stones or Sex Pistols Instead, it’s a much quieter, more intimate affair. As it should be: wiser men than I have been known to hail The Go-Betweens as the finest songwriters ever to emerge from Australia. For a band which emphasises the primacy of the song it’s paradoxical that they formed in Brisbane in 1978 as part of the punk revolution. Shifting to Melbourne, they initially shared the stage with a teenage Nick Cave.”I still think we’re inspired by the spirit of The Stooges,” says McLennan.

“It’s just we never felt we had to sound like – or try and live like – The Stooges. We’re similar to Nick (Cave) in the sense that we always believed in writing good songs not just making lots of noise. That said, I remember living with Nick in Shepherds Bush in the early 1980s and trying to get him to listen to Dylan and he refused. But we all get older and change.”McLennan and Forster have seen many changes across their adult lives: shifting to the UK in 1981 they enjoyed considerable critical acclaim yet never sold huge amounts of records. Disbanding in 1989, both pursued solo careers to diminishing returns Inevitably, they reformed The Go-Betweens. A tentative reunion in 2000 found their audience had grown considerably. In December 2001 Forster quit his German base to rejoin McLennan in Brisbane.”That’s how our new album Bright Yellow Bright Orange, came together notes McLennan.

It’d be impossible if Robert was still in Germany.”Bright Yellow Bright Orange’s title comes from the Australian landscape and appropriately its ten songs are dry, spare, witty, reflective on life and landscape. The songs are often literary (yet never pretentious) in style. Where most Australian acts are given to grand gestures – think INXS or AC/DC – The Go-Betweens are defiant minimalists.”Australia is such an ancient, distant, lost, fragmented place and it takes a very strong person who can survive there without going nuts,” says McLennan. “Look at Aboriginal culture, they’ve been there for maybe 60,000 years – that’s older than Europe, older than China – and then Europeans turn up and destroy them. See, Australia was and remains a hostile environment – the bugs, the critters, the heat, the people – it really is hostile to art, to culture, and that forces you to react.