On September 15, [Paul] Daniel stepped into the pit to conduct Wagner's Flying Dutchman, his first show as music director. The next morning Dennis Marks, the general director, walked out in a row over funding. Suddenly, Daniel was running the operation solo. But there was worse to come. In the first week of November, at half an hour's notice, he was called into the office of the then culture secretary, Chris Smith, and told that the government wanted "ENO and the Royal Opera to merge", with ENO moving into Covent Garden. "I left him politely, but in shock," says Daniel, who now thinks it was a deliberate move to summon him alone and at short notice. "Where was the chairman and where was everyone else? It was very interesting to be called in on your own, between performances. "I came out of the meeting in deep shock, starting to get very agitated, talking to people on the board. The department of culture called me up at home and told me to calm down...
