It should have been the start of a great career in classical music for Idit Arad. Everything was lining up for the talented 18-year-old opera singer. She had arrived in London from Israel in 1987, the proud winner of a sought-after scholarship to train at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. But instead of building the foundations of a successful future, she was singled out by a tutor 20 years her senior for a long period of obsessive attention and abuse.
Paul Roberts pursued her from their first lesson, Arad says, inviting her for coffee and then for a dinner to discuss her talent, before sending a stream of explicit letters, calling her a “witch” and urging her into sexual intimacy. Senior leadership, it is now admitted, knew of their involvement and yet failed to discipline Roberts.
More than 30 years on, Arad is speaking of her experience for the first time, after making a complaint to the school about its failings. “I should have felt safe there and free to develop my talent,” she says. “Instead, I was picked on by someone in authority, in view of some other staff, who should have had my welfare and the safeguarding of other young students as a priority.”
Last month, following a query from the Observer, Guildhall finally acknowledged failing in its duty of care to protect Arad from gross misconduct. It has since described Roberts’s behaviour as “appalling and completely unacceptable” and has acknowledged its failure to respond adequately. Roberts, a concert pianist, had remained a teacher at the school for another 30 years, but was suspended in 2021, at the outset of an internal inquiry prompted by Arad’s recent allegation.
Guildhall has now revealed to Arad that it did uphold her complaint, finding later iin the investigation that his behaviour had constituted “gross misconduct”. It would have dismissed him had he not already resigned his post. He was also stripped of a fellowship. Roberts still teaches students and did not comment when approached. “I was completely shocked that Guildhall had kept the outcome back from me,” says Arad. “I thought, thank God!”
There have been a number of cases of misconduct and abuse of varying degrees of severity at some of the country’s foremost academies in recent years. In 2023 virtuoso cellist Julian Lloyd Webber called for all one-to-one music teaching of young students to be dropped by classical academies and conservatoires after allegations against a teacher at the Royal College of Music. In 2021, Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester paid a former student damages after the high court found it had “facilitated” her abuse by a violin teacher. A decade ago a teacher at Guildhall was jailed for raping and sexually assaulting students.
Arad believes her experience and the belated response at Guildhall show the need to better protect music students. Often far from home, they are vulnerable to those in authority during a period of intense study. “This type of behaviour is still endemic in the classical music world – men of power expecting sexual favours of aspiring singers. To be a grown, confident woman and to tell such a man to go to hell is possible, but as a young student it is very different,” she says.
“My dearest wish in coming forward is for all music institutions in charge of young people to put in place a short course on safeguarding for teachers where they must commit to not inflicting any form of inappropriate behaviour or abuse. Equally, students should be told how to recognise such behaviour, and what to do if they meet it.”
She adds: “I also hope that anyone who has suffered as I did as a student, no matter when, will come forward and, even if not by name, tell of their experience to someone, be it the current school administration or a journalist. You are not alone.”
Arad’s musical potential had been spotted early in her native Israel. She sang in her school choir and played the cello. Then, at a summer “choir camp”, her exceptional voice earned her specialist tuition. After winning prizes, she was noticed by a renowned singing teacher, the late Vera Rózsa, who also trained Kiri Te Kanawa. The teenager was invited to study with Rózsa, a Guildhall teacher, in her London home. “It was a huge honour to be accepted to study with her, as she only taught four singers from the Guildhall at the time and I was the only undergraduate,” Arad recalls.
But after she met Roberts in her first term, life changed. He gave her gifts and left notes. A string of letters from Roberts, seen by the Observer, were often graphic and sexualised.
In later life Arad came to view his behaviour differently. “I could see it was inappropriate. I was lonely and he damaged my understanding of who I was with an awful combination of love bombing and gaslighting. There was no space left for me.”
They took part in sexual activity on Guildhall grounds. “Even if we had been the same age, it would not have been right, but I was 20 years younger and his student,” she says. The situation took its toll. Arad recalls feeling close to breakdown, crying alone for hours once when Roberts left her student room: “I couldn’t cope. It took me a long time to get enough strength to get on with my life.”
Her student peers remember how upset she seemed. “I wish I had properly understood,” one British classical musician and friend says. “I knew she was unhappy with him but I did not realise just how much difficulty she was in.” In a letter Arad then sent to Roberts, seen by the Observer, she begs him to leave his teaching job so that she can concentrate on her studies, saying she was in despair.
Arad, now 56, did manage to stop contact with Roberts after she left Guildhall. She went on to sing professionally and to record with leading international artists, despite a lasting legacy of mistrust.
“At that point, after all I had been through, I nearly gave up singing, my beloved vocation,” she says. She believes her promising career was hindered by her early encounter with Roberts.
She decided to complain officially to Guildhall in 2021, after talking over student days with friends and looking once more at the pile of letters from Roberts, hidden away in a cupboard. “I realised I would never feel better about that time unless I confronted Guildhall,” she says.
After receiving a sympathetic response to her complaint from the school’s current principal, Jonathan Vaughan, Arad was interviewed. Over a year later, Guildhall told her it had decided that, while mistakes had been made, it was unclear which staff had made them. A 2022 letter to her concluded that interaction between a staff member and a student was “not unique” at the time. It apologised, admitting that Arad had reason to have felt “unsupported”.
Arad welcomes the school’s recent acceptance of what she went through, but remains sad and outraged. “This altered not just my career, but also damaged my personal life,” she says.
She also still has serious questions about why more wasn’t done. Roberts was not officially reprimanded during her time at the school, but she was sent to a college psychologist. “She was a woman, but I couldn’t speak to her,” she says. “I felt ashamed and small and stressed.”
A spokesperson for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama said: “We deeply regret the failings in our duty of care towards Idit Arad and apologise unreservedly. The behaviour she experienced during her time at the school in the 1980s was appalling and completely unacceptable. We took immediate action when this case came to light in 2021. As soon as a formal complaint was made in December 2021, the staff member was immediately suspended pending an externally led investigation.
“Following the investigation’s conclusions in June 2022, the staff member resigned. An internal disciplinary process, which was conducted in his absence in October 2022, found that his behaviour constituted gross misconduct, which would have led to dismissal had he still been in the school’s employment. He was also stripped of his fellowship by the school.
“We take the duty of care of all students extremely seriously. Guildhall School has robust safeguarding measures in place, which are regularly reviewed to ensure a safe and secure learning environment for our students. We are committed to a culture free from bullying, harassment and misconduct, where concerns can be reported. Formal complaints procedures are accessible to all students, and our dedicated in-house counselling team and head of safeguarding provide direct support.”
• This article was amended on 9 March 2025 to clarify that Guildhall apologised to Idit Arad in a 2022 letter for the fact she had been unsupported.
