The colourful impresario's Opera and Ballet International whose productions have been regularly seen at the City Hall over recent years officially ceases to exist after next Friday, July 3.

The last rites are at the Lyceum Theatre, ironically the first time the company has gone in there, at the end of latest and last, extensive tour of the British Isles.

The three-night Lyceum stand with Puccini's Turandot and Bizet's Carmen will not, though, be the end for Ellen, hardly a retiring person in the reserved sense of the word.

"I hit 60 in April, which is not old, but I felt I was getting a little weary, a bit travel-worn. I've been doing it for 17-and-a-half years," she says.

"I thought the time has come to go out on a high with the three biggest operas I've ever done, Carmen, Turandot and Aida, on the biggest set I've ever had, then think of other artistic things which are not so labour intensive."

To help her think, last year with her older sister she bought a 13-acre estate near Canterbury with "a lovely art deco house" that used to belong to the Joseph Conrad family.

She was dreaming of "G & Ts under the parasols" when The Stage ran an article about her retiring and soon after another impresario was on the doorstep saying: "Can I buy some of your business?"

Ellen thought it was "a shame to just let it die," and the outcome was the impresario (at present, under wraps) bought a large part of her business and is keeping her on as a producer and artistic director.

Says Ellen: "There are big differences. I will not be the promoter, not having to underwrite it, not having to be finding millions of pounds to keep tours on the road. I'll be sidestepping out of the planning, the huge staff, core costs, the marketing, the finances.

"Somebody else will be doing all that, who obviously thought my product was worth saving and keeping it going and paying me to, I suppose, manage it.

"In the not so distant future there are plans to re-float it under this other person. I'll just be directing the shows, which is really all I ever wanted to do, and will bring over the product to tour.

"It's good not to switch off completely, give myself another four years, but finishing off my business to sell it to somebody else: I cannot tell you how much work is involved. It's horrendous!"

So will she use the same performing forces?

"Yes, it's my product that was wanted. My product is East European, be it ballet or opera, but obviously it will not be an Ellen Kent show the way it has been.

"I was a mad impresario/ artist who threw money at shows regardless of whether I made it or not and made it difficult for other promoters to make money.

"I did what I did. It was my hobby-become a job, a job that was no longer a hobby.

It never entered my head that this was available to make money, it was more like can I find enough money to do it for artistic satisfaction."

Ellen, twice been nominated as European Woman of the Year and whose company has regularly and successfully filled prestigious venues throughout Britain, has been a producer since 1984, initially of plays written "on the kitchen table" by her husband which toured Europe.

Then Rochester Council came along with the offer of funding to put a "foreign event" on at Rochester Castle to coincide the opening of the Euro Tunnel.

"I didn't think French plays would offer the spectacle they were looking for and off the top of my head, the way I do most things, as you know, I said what about opera? They said: 'That's a good idea.'"

She got in touch with the then manager of Buxton Opera House, Chris Grady, with regard to finding a foreign opera company. He gave a promoter's phone number and he said the Romanian National Opera had a very good Nabucco.

"We arranged to see it and that was it, that was the beginning," says Ellen, her East European links being forged from the outset.

Without hesitation, she singles out the ensuing performance of Verdi's opera in Rochester Castle gardens in July 1993 as the highlight of the next 17 years.

"We flew 200 Romanians of the Romanian National Opera over in Ceausescu's old plane lent to me by the president of the time. It was a huge outdoor performance with a sell-out 7,000 audience and was the most emotional thing I've done.

"No matter what I have done since, it has never given me that total feeling of fairyland. It opened up a new chapter on my life, which I am now closing. It's rather sad, really. "

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