Australian finance expert Loretta Tomasi speaks for the first time about her plans to save English National Opera from turmoil

Alice O'Keefe [The Guardian, 8 January 2006]

Loretta Tomasi is a woman with her feet on the ground. With her sensibly short hair, wide grin and earthy Antipodean accent, she does not look like a figurehead for the rarefied world of British opera. But when her predecessor, Sean Doran, resigned amid some controversy last November, the board of the English National Opera had no hesitation in appointing her chief executive. Looking out of place amid the pomp and finery of the restored Coliseum, just off Trafalgar Square, she even seems a little surprised herself.