And when the hour-long performance came to an end, some of the audience were in tears and there were more cries for an encore than for almost any other set of the weekend.The fact that the lyrics, warning of the gathering clouds and the oncoming storm, chimed with the rain clouds overhead only added to the surrealism – though, thankfully, the rain only spat instead of poured while the orchestra played.It was “cosmic,” Paul Daniel, the ENO’s music director, said afterwards.”What we do is what we did here today, but what changed it is the way the audience listened here They were listening absolutely fresh,” he said. They booed when he insisted on banishing his daughter Br?ilde for disobeying him. At the Glastonbury Festival yesterday, the English National Opera performed a slice of Wagner – and it went down a storm

The Valkyries have never ridden like it before. The Valkyries have never ridden like it before. We are all responsible for creating the environment and it is only through our collective and individual actions that we can start to move forward.”On women doctors, the report calls for a “dramatic evaluation of the structure of the medical profession” to end gender discrimination.

But it adds: “Flexible training and work is an insufficient solution on its own. Other factors need to be addressed, such as work culture and stereotypes.”High-pressure specialities such as cardiology have the lowest proportion of women consultants, at 7 per cent, compared to those that require greater counselling skills, such as palliative medicine (for patients with terminal illnesses), where the proportion is 59 per cent. Among GPs leaving practices, 74 per cent of women cited “family reasons” compared to 16 per cent of men.. It is not acceptable for anyone to think this is someone else’s problem. The report finds doctors have been held back because of racism, homophobia, discrimination, disability and gender, and calls for zero tolerance of all discrimination.More than seven in 10 consultants are white, yet among the lower-ranking associate specialist grade six in 10 are from ethnic minorities.

George Rae, chair of the BMA’s Equal Opportunities Committee, said: “The doctors who participated in this study have told us not enough is being done in the NHS to combat discrimination It makes uncomfortable reading. Seventy-six per cent of hospital consultants are men, compared to 24 per cent who are women. Although this reflects the larger number of men who entered medical schools 30 years ago, women account for a higher proportion (37 per cent) of the lower-grade hospital doctors called associate specialists who are fully trained as are consultants but have not achieved the same professional status.One woman doctor told the researchers: “I had to work for [a male consultant] who was completely opposed to women in medicine. He had been heard telling women medical students that they should be at home having children.” Another said: “If men gave birth I think the medical profession would be structured somewhat differently.”The BMA is the voice of the medical profession, representing 120,000 doctors in the UK and abroad, and it launched the report, Career Barriers in Medicine, on the eve of its annual conference in Llandudno yesterday. The situation is critical because medicine is becoming a female-dominated profession.

More than 61 per cent of medical students are women, double the proportion of 30 years ago. On present trends, women doctors are expected to outnumber male colleagues by 2012. Sexist attitudes and a macho work culture cause the absence of women from the most senior posts in medicine, a report said yesterday. Last Wednesday, John Reid, the Health Secretary, went further by announcing that choice will be extended to any hospital, public or private, that can meet NHS standards and provide treatment at the NHS price by 2008.However, some BMA representatives believe that the policy is a stalking-horse for the privatisation of the NHS, arguing that patient choice “is being used by John Reid to hide the Government’s introduction of multiple private providers into health care”.. There is no point Egon Ronay producing a guide to restaurants if all the tables are fully booked,” he said.Ministers have already declared that patients are to be offered a choice of four or five hospitals at the point of GP referral from the end of next year.