A scandal that the Royal Opera House thought was buried has resurfaced in spectacular fashion.

In a bitter attack from beyond the grave, Ross Stretton, the Australian who once ran the Royal Ballet, has attacked almost everyone who worked at Covent Garden, from the board of directors to the lighting staff, accusing them of sabotaging his brief tenure as director six years ago.

Stretton made his comments in an interview recorded by the National Library of Australia in 2003. Only now, three years after his death from cancer, have the contents of that interview been disclosed.

Stretton’s anger and desire for revenge are clearly evident in his comments, which are quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald. In the interview, he said he was the victim of brazen anticolonial sentiment - he was the first nonBriton to lead the Royal Ballet - and of an intransigent status quo and a “gay push” that in effect made it impossible for him to do his job.

Asked in the recording, “Did they hate your guts because you were a colonial?” he replied: “I feel so.” Stretton was brought into the Royal Ballet originally to modernise the company, but within a year he faced a vote of no confidence from the dancers and the constant gripes of critics dismayed by his bland programming, quirky casting and lack of confidence in the company’s heritage.

He also presided over a disastrous Golden Jubilee gala for the Queen in July 2002, which resulted in a letter of complaint from Sir Colin Southgate, then chairman of the ROH board. The interview reignites the furious controversy over Stretton’s directorship.

At the time, the atmosphere behind the scenes at Covent Garden was poisonous and the dancers were so upset with his capricious management that they called in their union and threatened to strike. Finally, faced with certain expulsion by a concerned board, Stretton walked out.

While the Australian blamed everyone else for what went wrong, he played down the persistent rumours - never scotched - that he operated a casting-couch policy, demanding sexual favours from younger dancers eager for advancement.

“All of that garbage was in the paper, and I can only assume that’s from promoting young dancers over dead wood,” he was quoted as saying in The Sydney Morning Herald.

“I promoted nine dancers, young dancers, and that’s when I think the s*** hit the fan.”

He also placed some of the blame for his downfall on a fellow Australian, Lady MacMillan, widow of the choreo-grapher Kenneth MacMillan, whose works form the backbone of the Royal Ballet repertoire.

According to him, she threatened to withdraw her husband’s ballets if Stretton, who was very choosy about which ones he wanted, remained in the job. “When the Deborah MacMillan issue came up, that was the big one. I knew I had no support.”

His interview was originally meant to be kept under wraps for 40 years. However, when terminal cancer was diagnosed, he gave consent for the transcript to be released three years after his death.

The Royal Opera House issued a brief and dismissive statement of his reported remarks: “We will not be discussing any of the comments made by Ross Stretton in the article in The Sydney Morning Herald beyond saying this is his version of events surrounding his brief tenure at the Royal Opera House, 2001-02, which regrettably came to a very sad end.”

Stretton was succeeded by Monica Mason, a long-time member of the company.

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