Empire Theatre stalwart Ellen Kent is marking her 60th birthday with a whole new career. She tells all to Laura Davis
HOW will theatre producer Ellen Kent spend the years of her retirement? Will she enjoy long walks around her country estate, perhaps treating herself to more than one of her usually only daily cigars?
No. Despite deciding to stop touring opera and ballets around UK theatres after she turns 60 next month, she is going for something even more demanding.
Kent, who has been a regular visitor to Liverpool’s Empire Theatre since the mid-1990s, plans to create arena-scale shows, giving her the chance to indulge her adventurous side.
It was this facet of her personality that drove her to produce a spectacular version of Bizet’s Carmen at Leeds Castle last year – to a sell out audience of 6,000 people.
“It’s a pause for thought,” she says of reaching 60. “I have a teeny weeny bit of a burnt-out feeling with what I’m doing. I’ve loved every minute of it but I’ve done it each way I can think of.
“Sometimes I think I’d like to stop and take a break but I think I’d get bored very quickly.
“Doing arena shows is a risk but I’ve taken a lot of risks in my life.”
Kent started out as an actress, dancer and singer, appearing in a few TV shows and acting in plays penned by her now ex-husband.
In 1983, she decided to set up a production company, bringing opera performers from Eastern Europe to tour the UK. Ten years ago, she expanded into ballet and her shows have played to more than three million people.
She comes across as extremely confident, without being over-bearing, and it is easy to see why Empire Theatre owner Live Nation agreed to the demands of the unknown opera producer who asked for space in their programme back in 1994.
“They took the risk. They didn’t know who the hell I was but they allowed me to go in and, of course, I did very well and made them a lot of money,” says Ellen, who has been awarded medals by the presidents of Moldova and the Ukraine.
“It was always me against the Welsh National Opera to start with, but I proved myself by the audience coming in such numbers. A full audience on a Saturday matinee is the most wonderful feeling in the world.”
The key to her success, Kent reveals, was putting on traditional opera at a time when more well-established companies were focussing on “cutting edge” productions.
This particularly appealed to Liverpool audiences, at a time when opera was not a major part of the cultural programme.
“The people in Liverpool are a cross-section and lots and lots of people have been to my shows who had never been to opera before,” she says.
“The Empire has to be the best venue I’ve put my productions into in Britain. It has the biggest stage in the country, and all my shows, which tend to be on the large, spectacular scale, come into their own there.”
While the quality of the lead performers are extremely important to Kent, she also spends a lot of time on the finer details – “animals, children and extras” as she puts it.
Todo, the white Spanish stallion, was the first of her animals, starring in Carmen in 2002.
Since then her productions have featured several more horses, Russian Borzoi hunting dogs (“and lots of naked women in Rigoletto,” Kent adds), golden eagles, falcons, koi carp and lots and lots of donkeys.
She has been an animal lover since moving to Andalucia from her birthplace of India, after her father retired from diplomatic service.
While he drank cheap gin and read The Telegraph, her mother ran an animal sanctuary.
“We had 50 cats, 40 dogs, 20 donkeys. We were like the Spanish equivalent of the RSPCA, only we never managed to get any homes for them so we just had our little farm getting overun with animals,” she recalls.
Now her only pet is a 16-year-old Tonkinese cat, Mimi La Boheme, who she walks around her country estate on the end of a pink retractable dog lead.
Kent bought the house and the surrounding 13 acres outside Canterbury, once owned by Heart of Darkness author Joseph Conrad, with her sister, Netta, and they are currently doing it up.
It is from there that she is plotting her shift in career and enjoys sitting on the terrace remembering her eventful working life so far.
There was the time she spent a weekend in Istanbul with acclaimed Russian dancer Yuri Grigorovich, persuading him to allow her to take his Nutcracker to the UK.
Then there was the “fantastic Arabian Nights” adventure that saw her producing Carmen for the Emir of Qatar in front of 3,000 royal guests, and Turandot in the Lebanese President’s palace.
Not forgetting, of course, her version of Aida at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996.
“I was invaded by Peter Tatchell’s lot – outrage from the avenging lesbians, who stopped the whole performance for 10 minutes and made every TV station in Britain,” she exclaims.
“They were protesting about gay rights abuse in Romania and because I had the Romanian National Opera they thought it was a high profile event.
“I wasn’t best pleased. I had a packed out house – 5,000 people slow hand-clapping them and the police dragging them off stage.”
Her dream, Kent reveals, is to stage Aida in front of the Pyramids in Egypt.
“I may be mothballing some of my productions,” she announces dramatically, “but Ellen Kent can never be mothballed.”
THE Daily Post has joined with Ellen Kent to offer readers the chance to win one of five spectacular prizes. First prize is a pair of top priced tickets to see Aida, a bottle of Russian methode champagne, an embroidered jewellery box, an opera poster and a glossy souvenir programme. Second prize is a pair of top priced tickets to see Aida, a bottle of Russian methode champagne and a programme, while three runners up will receive a pair of top priced tickets to see Turandot and a programme.
To enter, answer the following question: Who commissioned Verdi to write Aida? Answers on a postcard by Tuesday, March 24 to Ellen Kent Competition, Liverpool Daily Post, PO Box 48, Old Hall Street, Liverpool L69 3EB or by email to laura.davis@liverpool.com
Turandot is at the Liverpool Empire on Thursday March 26 nd Aida on Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28.
