HOWZAT

Does this answer imply that Daniel, like the departed Payne, has also had his run-ins with the board? “When the board was grappling with the business of what to do about us artistic directors,” Daniel says, “I did give them quite a ranty speech, a manifesto, about what I believed ENO to be about.” And how did that go down? “Actually they applauded me,” Daniel says. “I don’t think boards are used to clapping. But the fact that they did fills me with some hope.”

Whose side was he on in the row between Payne and the board? “I won’t comment on the circumstances,” he says. “But by God, you miss that man’s qualities when they aren’t around.”

What, then, of Payne’s possible successor? The dozens of names touted round the opera world are nothing if not exotic and varied. At one end of the spectrum is Wasfi Kani, the princess of country-house opera. At the other, Pierre Audi, the impresario of radical chic. Somewhere in the middle are “safe pairs of hands” such as the former Glyndebourne suit Anthony Whitworth-Jones. Has Daniel been consulted? “The appointment of Nick’s successor lies with the board,” he replies carefully. “I am not a member of that board. They keep me informed as they see fit. They are dancing on a very high wire — but then, they chose to dance on it. And I shall say no more.”

Not on that subject anyway. What Daniel is happy to talk about is The Trojans, which is being staged to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Berlioz’s birth. Controversially, ENO is splitting the piece: Acts I and II, which together are known as The Capture of Troy, receive seven performances from Monday; while the remainder, The Trojans at Carthage, follows in May.

“Let’s be honest,” says Daniel disarmingly. “To do it as two separate shows is a completely artificial division, and we should not pretend that it does anything other than enormous disrespect to Berlioz. We will be doing it complete in 2004 when we move back to the Coliseum. But we found we had the opportunity to stage it in two halves this year, when the timing of the Coliseum restoration changed.”

Daniel believes, however, that the company has made a virtue out of necessity by emphasising the contrasting atmospheres of the opera’s two parts. “Troy, the first part, is war, destruction, the leaving behind of an exhausted world. Carthage is finding a new world, a paradise, and starting from scratch. I mustn’t say too much about the sets, but the fact that Richard Jones (the director) has used different designers for each part, who have worked completely separately, has produced brilliant results.”

Daniel may not want to give much away, but the ENO brochure promises to recreate Troy in sets “inspired by a riot-torn Los Angeles to evoke a post-apocalyptic urban environment”. Which sounds like the very epitome of Daniel’s bold manifesto for his company.

It would, of course, be entirely typical of ENO to produce a stunning humdinger of a show on stage while being in administrative and financial turmoil behind the scenes. Let’s hope that, one day, the company can sort out the latter without watering down the former.

• The Capture of Troy opens at the Coliseum (020-7632 8300) on Monday and runs until February 27