‘I like to think that I am a pioneer – not by intention but by accident! I enjoy a challenge, and I do deliver.’
I first met Ellen Kent in 2016 when her UK tour touched down at Liverpool Empire, and I was helping establish a new online entertainment review company predominantly covering the North-West of England. Although I had some limited exposure to opera in my younger years, her productions served as a welcome re-introduction with Ellen herself acting as a kind guide and host.
Some ten years later, I find myself again setting up a new online review company, with a wider focus than the one before, whilst Ellen has recently commenced what is titled her Farewell Opera Tour. With her imminent return to Liverpool Empire – and Manchester Opera House next month – I can fondly recall her many productions that have so joyously filled and entertained during those intervening years – Aida; La Bohème; Carmen; Madama Butterfly; Nabucco; Rigoletto; Tosca; La Traviata – as well as the wonderful cast and creative crews she has brought to these shores.
And so as one curtain prepares itself to fall, it brings to mind one question: who is the lady behind the operas?
Ella was born in India, the daughter of the High Commissioner. Her mother staged opera productions in Bombay (Mumbai) with Ellen herself performing when she was just six years old, an experience that was to clearly influence and shape her life and artistic career.
She moved to England whilst still young and was educated in Norfolk before attending Durham University where she graduated with a First-Class Honours degree which served merely as a prelude to her training at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
After several years working as an actress, Ellen moved into production where her drive and imagination quickly propelled her producing across on a scale few could have imagined or anticipated.
Her early professional work centred on theatre, particularly children’s productions, across Europe, where she produced exchanges with European companies as she recognised the opportunities for cultural partnership across a continent where everyone was growing closer together.
1988 probably marked the beginning of her reputation as an innovator in cultural exchange when she organised for Théâtre La Fontaine to bring its production Plumes d’Amour to the Canterbury Festival, while Dual Control performed its children’s musical Ouch! In Lille.
In 1991 she became the first British producer to receive an Arts Council grant to tour a foreign company in the UK, bringing over Bleu d’Ecailles (Why the Fish Left the River), an environmental play from Lille’s National Children’s Theatre: the set was so elaborate that it had to be plumbed into each theatre!
The following year she produced Mowgli – L’Enfant Loup by Théâtre Jeune Public of Strasbourg, an innovative re-imagining of The Jungle Book. The play was translated into English by playwright and BBC journalist Michael Bath, and Ellen invited Dame Judi Dench to provide the narration. Dame Judi agreed and later became a long-standing patron of Ellen’s ballet and opera productions.
Her reputation continued to grow with two of her French productions, including a performance of Comédien Ambulant, performed as part of the official opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994, attended by Queen Elizabeth II.
During these years, Ellen won twelve separate Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme (BSIS) awards from the UK government, recognising her success in raising sponsorship for tours. These included one of the largest BSIS matching grants ever awarded, supporting the Romanian National Opera’s UK tours in 1996.
Behind this success lies a very grounded woman, possessed of a lightness of spirit and a marvellous sense of humour: ‘I like to think that I am a pioneer – not by intention but by accident! I enjoy a challenge, and I do deliver.’
Ellen is passionate about opera and her traditional style productions are renowned for being big, bold, and lavish, reflecting her desire to entertain and show real people what real opera is about and awaken them to its magnificence, with her earlier regular productions at the Albert Hall always selling out quickly.
When she brought over the Moldovan National Opera to perform Carmen at Leeds Castle, she erected a huge marquee incorporating a bullring with a real military band marching in to the March of the Toreadors song, with professional Flamenco dancers and a beautiful white Andalusian stunt horse called Caspian to add to the performance.
In fact with animals very much in her background – her mother ran an animal rescue centre in Andalusia in Spain – it was a natural progression to introduce them into her operas: an eagle; a donkey; an Afghan hound; and with her own cat appearing in a production of La Bohème, it was the perfect opportunity to raise vast sums of money for animal rescue centres.
And so to the present day and her Farewell Opera Tour featuring the National Opera of Ukraine with international soloists, a highly praised chorus, and full orchestra.
Following working with the Romanians and Moldovans, in 2000 she went to work with the Odessa Opera and Vasyl Vasylenko, was the then musical director and conductor, still works as her conductor to this day. For her work in bringing them to the Albert Hall, she was awarded, in 2005, with The Golden Fortune Honorary Medal by the then Ukrainian president Vladimir Yushchenko. With previous recipients including Sophia Loren, Margaret Beckett, and Pope John Paul II, it was presented to her at the Richmond Theatre by the Ukrainian Ambassador.
It was not the first or last of many awards: she was the first British citizen to receive a medal from the President of Moldova for ‘Best Contribution to the Arts in Moldova’, an award made during the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Moldovan Arts Council. She was also twice a finalist in the European Woman of the Year Awards.
Of all her many adventures, bringing the National Opera of Ukraine to the UK in the middle of a war must rank as one of the most hazardous, yet having been born in the middle of a Hindu-Muslim riot, she is no newcomer to conflict and she has been steadfast in her commitment in bringing the Ukrainian artists over even while the war is raging. Indeed, if one takes a closer look at some of her sets, you can see the bullet holes from when the company had to flee when the Russians first invaded the Crimea in 2014.
Although billed as her farewell tour, Ellen has no intention of retiring; she is in fact already working closely with one her current creative team who works in the Moldavian Opera – she worked with his father some twenty years ago – to establish the Ellen Kent International Opera Agency.
A life well lived, and one that continues to roll on: you simply can’t keep a good person down. What odds on a Comeback Tour in 2027…
For further details on Ellen’s current UK tour and booking, please go to https://www.ellenkent.com/