Issue 7: A chat with... Harry
2nd June 2023
In each issue of our newsletters we have interviewed a different member of the team to find out a little bit more about them outside of ENO Breathe. In this issue, we’ve reached a little further afield in the ENO family…
This time round we will be hearing from the Chair of ENO’s board, Dr Harry Brünjes
What is your earliest memory?
Probably not unsurprisingly my earliest memory is my mother rewarding me with jelly. I was brought up in a small 3-bed semi-detached house in the country on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. The house had been the Butler’s House for Gunton Hall which was 200-yards up the lane. The other side had been the chef’s house. In our kitchen we had a circular table with three legs and wooden clawed feet. For some reason I took very seriously cleaning these feet with a little brush, bowl of water and some soap. My mother always rewarded me with jelly. Other than trifle I don’t think I have eaten jelly for over sixty years.
What was your first job?
My first job was as a waiter, aged 14, in the Gunton Hall Holiday Camp now owned by Warners. I served tables for the complete summer season and what an education in life it was.
Do you have a favourite opera or show?
I am afraid this answer will be less specific. In regards of opera I have always enjoyed Madam Butterfly but in my years as Chair of ENO I have come to appreciate Akhnaten. In musical theatre I cannot decide between ‘My Fair Lady‘ or ‘Guys & Dolls‘.
What is your favourite song?
In opera, like many, my favourite is the Pearl Fishers Duet. I enjoy the Alfie Boe and Bryn Terfel version simply because I know both of them. In the American Songbook I have been addicted my whole life to a song called, ‘I can’t get started’ written by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin in 1936. I adore the Bunny Berigan version from 1937. Bunny was a trumpet virtuoso and sadly died aged 33.
What are your hobbies?
I have a range of hobbies and interests, but the two I am best known for are piano and golf. With the passing of the years my piano playing is incrementally getting better but my golf is incrementally getting worse. To quote Jack Nicklaus, ‘I hit the ball so short I can hear it land’.
What can’t you live without?
My wife, my four children and my soon to be nine grandchildren…and my ten pianos.
How did you end up being involved with the ENO?
Jacquie and I have been in and out of every London theatre repeatedly since we married in 1980. Since 2000 Jacquie and I had a close friendship with Lord & Lady Parkinson, Cecil and Ann. Cecil, throughout his long political career, had been a benefactor to English National Opera. It is Cecil and Ann who suggested that I join the ENO Board and the rest, as they say, is history. Cecil sadly passed away in 2016 but Jacquie and I remain very close to Ann Parkinson who is a good friend to ENO.