Arts Council England’s recent cuts in support for London institutions large and small sent shock waves through the cultural world. One of the hardest hit was the venerable and beloved English National Opera, threatened with imminent extinction. An interim grant of £11.46 million for April 2023 to March 2024 has bought the company time to develop a new business model, but what form it may take remains a matter of anxious speculation. Just now, a rare revival of the teenage Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s runaway hit of 1920 illustrates the company’s historic stature as a showcase for operatic excellence through the ages. The hallucinatory tale, told in a lush post-Romantic style, involves the protagonist’s obsession with his long-dead wife and her living double. —Matthew Gurewitsch