“When he took over five years ago, leaving his post as director of BBC News to do so, Hall was described in the press as having taken on the ‘dirtiest job in the arts’. The opera house was emerging from a particularly dark period; indeed, the television fly-on-the-wall documentary series The House had shown it as chaotically organised and financially in tatters.” Now “the ROH has now balanced its books for the seventh consecutive year and Hall, once the arts world outsider, has just renewed his five-year contract.”