Editing Colin Davis (section)

==Covent Garden==
In 1970, [[David Webster (opera manager)|Sir David Webster]], who ran the [[The Royal Opera|Royal Opera]] and the [[The Royal Ballet|Royal Ballet]] companies at [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]], invited Davis to succeed [[Georg Solti|Sir Georg Solti]] as principal conductor of the opera.<ref name="haltrechtB">Haltrecht, p. 101</ref> At about the same time, the [[Boston Symphony Orchestra]] invited him to become its musical director, but Davis felt that if Covent Garden needed him, it was his duty to take on the post.<ref name=blyth21 /> Webster's vision was that Davis and the stage director [[Peter Hall (director)|Sir Peter Hall]], formerly of the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]], would work in equal partnership as musical director and director of productions. After early successes together, including the première of [[Michael Tippett]]'s ''[[The Knot Garden]]'' in December 1970, Hall left to succeed [[Laurence Olivier]] as director of the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]]. Webster had retired by that time, leaving Davis, together with Webster's successor as General Administrator, [[John Tooley|Sir John Tooley]], to run the Royal Opera.<ref name=haltrechtB>Haltrecht, p. 101</ref>

[[File:Royal Opera House.JPG|thumb|left|upright|The [[Royal Opera House]], Covent Garden, where Davis was musical director between 1970 and 1986]]
Davis' early months in charge at Covent Garden were marked by dissatisfaction among some of the audience, and booing was heard at a "disastrous" ''[[Nabucco]]'' in 1972. His conducting of Wagner's ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen|Ring]]'' cycle was at first compared unfavourably with that of his predecessor.<ref name=canning /> Among his successes were Berlioz's massive ''[[Les Troyens]]'' (with [[Jon Vickers]] and [[Anja Silja]]) and ''[[Benvenuto Cellini (opera)|Benvenuto Cellini]]'', Verdi's ''[[Falstaff (opera)|Falstaff]]'', the major Mozart operas, and, as one critic put it, he "confirmed his preeminence as a Britten and Stravinsky interpreter" with productions of ''[[Peter Grimes]]'' and ''[[The Rake's Progress]]''.<ref name=canning /> Davis conducted more than 30 operas during his fifteen-year tenure,<ref name=grove /> but "since people like [[Lorin Maazel|Maazel]], [[Claudio Abbado|Abbado]] and [[Riccardo Muti|Muti]] would only come for new productions", Davis yielded the baton to these foreign conductors, giving up the chance to conduct several major operas, including ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'', ''[[Rigoletto]]'' and ''[[Aida]]''.<ref name=canning />

In addition to the standard operatic repertoire, Davis conducted a number of modern and unfamiliar operas, including Tippett's ''The Knot Garden'' and ''[[The Ice Break]]'' (of which he is the dedicatee),<ref name=grove /> and [[Alexander Zemlinsky]]'s ''[[Der Zwerg|The Dwarf]]'' and ''[[Eine florentinische Tragödie]]''.<ref>Royal Opera House programme booklets for 30 September 1983, 3 April 1970, 2 December 1970, 6 December 1972, 11 July 1977 and 7 October 1985</ref> With later stage directors at Covent Garden, Davis preferred to work with those who respected the [[libretto]]: "I have a hankering for producers who don't feel jealous of composers for being better than they are, and want to impose their, often admittedly clever, ideas on the work in hand."<ref>''Gramophone'', July 1981, p. 23</ref> Davis hoped that [[Götz Friedrich]], with whom he worked on Wagner's ''Ring'' cycle, would take on the role of principal producer vacated by Hall, "but it seemed that nobody wanted to commit themselves."<ref name=canning>Canning, Hugh. "Forget the booing, remember the triumph", ''The Guardian'', 19 July 1986, p. 11</ref>

During his Covent Garden tenure, Davis returned to the BBC Symphony Orchestra as principal guest conductor from 1971 to 1975, and held the same post with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1972 to 1984.<ref name=who /> In 1977, he became the first English conductor to appear at [[Bayreuth Festival|Bayreuth]], where he conducted the opening opera of the festival, ''[[Tannhäuser (opera)|Tannhäuser]]''. Despite the Bayreuth habitués' suspicion of newcomers,<ref>26 July 1977, p. 9</ref> his ''Tannhäuser'' was "highly successful".<ref>''The Times'', 25 July 1977, p. 9; and 26 July 1977, p. 9</ref> He debuted at the [[Metropolitan Opera]], New York City, in 1967 with ''[[Peter Grimes]]'', the [[Vienna State Opera]] in 1986 and the [[Bavarian State Opera]] in 1994.<ref name=who />