English National Opera started in the slums of Waterloo at the end of the 19th century. Much of the property down there was owned by Emma Cons and, as she went round collecting the rents of a Monday, she was distressed to see how many women and children looked as though they had suffered abuse.

Miss Cons put this down to the fact that the principal amusement of Waterloo (over the weekend) was going to the pub. So she decided to give the inhabitants something else to do. She owned the Old Vic Theatre and began to put on popular shows - concerts, magic lantern slides, even temperance lectures - with cheap refreshments (tea and cake mostly). Discovering, like many a theatre manager before her, that the theatre eats up all your time, she summoned her niece, Lilian Baylis, from South Africa to give her a hand. The young woman found she had a natural aptitude for the business and, on Miss Cons' death, she took over the Old Vic.

Miss Baylis was as passionately devoted to the poor as her aunt - but she treated the Old Vic quite differently. She did not want to just throw on concerts. She wanted to give her audience the absolute best in theatrical entertainment. Opera and Shakespeare seemed to her the best theatre going, so she put on opera and Shakespeare and, because this was all new to the people in Waterloo, she made sure that the opera was always sung in English.

All through the 1920s and ‘30s Lilian Baylis put on opera, Shakespeare and eventually ballet. Everything was done on a shoe string: the scenery was made of ginger beer crates and the casts were so badly paid that Miss Baylis often fried suppers for them in the wings. But, by the end of her life, she had created the companies that would become The Royal Ballet, the Royal National Theatre and the English National Opera.

Nowadays English National Opera operates from the biggest theatre in London and its employees can afford to buy their own suppers in the canteen under the stage. But it has never forgotten where it came from. Operas are still sung in English and the ticket prices, especially at the top of the theatre, are kept as low as possible. And of course the Company works hard to attract newcomers to opera. Just what Lilian Baylis would have wanted.

Sarah Lenton

ENO Baylis,
London Coliseum
St. Martins Lane
London WC2N 4ES

email: baylis@eno.org
tel. + 44 (0)20 7632 8484
fax +44 (0)20 7845 9443