Letter from London.

On April 2, a new executive director arrived at the Royal Opera House. Tony Hall, age forty-nine, succeeds Michael Kaiser, who departed at the end of last year to take up a new position as president of the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Hall's appointment came as a surprise to many, for he has no previous experience of running an arts organization -- his entire career has been spent at the BBC, where he has held the important post of director of news and public affairs since 1990. Making his announcement, Royal Opera Chairman Colin Southgate highlighted Hall's achievements at Britain's premier broadcasting institution, where, he said, Hall had "maintained [its] reputation as the leading news and current-affairs broadcaster in the world and played an important role in the leadership and management of the Corporation."

During his time at the BBC, Hall oversaw such pivotal developments as the beginning of the televising of Parliament in 1989 and the launch of its own round-the-clock digital channel, BBC News 24, in 1997. He was also one of the principal contenders to succeed John Birt, the BBC's director general -- the most vital position within the British media -- in 1999. After Hall failed to obtain that prestigious post (which went to Greg Dyke, a leading figure from commercial television), it seems scarcely surprising that he wished to deploy his talents elsewhere. "His extensive experience of managing complex budgets and working in a fast-moving, creative environment make him ideally suited to this position at the Royal Opera House," Southgate continued. It can also be supposed that Hall's acute understanding of the media, and contacts within it, will be of benefit to an organization that operates in an often unfriendly climate.

Others have noted that the two references to the performing arts within Hall's CV -- he is chairman of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East (an innovative but small-scale community theater in London's East End) and claims to be "a lifelong devotee" of the ROH -- scarcely amount to a very large hill of beans. Hall's reputed salary of 250,000 [pounds sterling] (far greater, be it noted, than Kaiser's reported 140,000 [pounds sterling]) apparently proved a sticking point during negotiations, though not, it seems, an insuperable one. That none of the major European (or indeed American) intendants was favored may indicate that none of them felt sufficiently sanguine about Covent Garden's future to enter the race.

One of those board members charged with making the selection for Kaiser's replacement was Vivien Duffield, who herself departed as Southgate's deputy chairman on January 24. She remains as chairman of both the ROH Trust and its Development Appeal -- the private fundraising element in Covent Garden's finances. In her latter capacity, the wealthy heiress had given (and successfully encouraged others to give) substantial sums toward the revamped theater and its much-expanded site. She nevertheless remains a controversial figure, a strong-minded and forthright individual who famously does not get on with Southgate.

Though her time was officially up (she had served nine years on the board), Duffield's was not the quietest of departures. In a farewell e-mail sent to staff, Duffield described her final year on the board as "largely unpleasant," later telling The Times that there had been a clash of personalities. "It's ...