As a newsman, he had a nose for incipient trouble. In an opera house, that knack is worth two good mezzos and a ballerina any day of the week. Of Covent Garden's first administrator, the Liverpool department store manager David Webster, it was said that he would turn up backstage exactly two minutes before a crisis broke. Hall has something of that intuitive talent. Below decks, he came to seem omniscient. 

The house calmed down, the media storms died out. A leaky staffer was promoted above her point of access to journalists, then quietly fired. Disgruntled commentators were lunched into submission. The Arts Council was expelled from board meetings — a bold and unconstitutional move that eliminated a pervasive anti-elitist whine and allowed stage directors to go about their business without worrying whether they had read the latest directives on social inclusion and disability rights. 

The board members and chairmen whom Hall recruited are low-key types who contributed in specific areas of expertise and did not meddle beyond, as had been the habit in the past. The board's main role was made clear: to raise money. Hall's stated aim was for personal and corporate donations to the ROH to outstrip its state subsidy, reversing a public-private partnership into a private-public one and blazing the path towards a Met-like autonomy. 

Quelling tabloid sneers, Hall struck a deal with Rupert Murdoch's Sun to offer Christmas ballet outings for as little as £20 for a family of four. At new operas, the top seat was £65, within popular reach.

Several of these novelties won popular acclaim. Thomas Ades's Tempest went on to rock the Met. Harrison Birtwistle's Minotaur, as tough as any opera the craggy old Lancastrian has written, sold out its entire run on revival. Mark Turnage's Anna Nicole was an overnight media sensation. All are writing more for the ROH.