Producer Ellen Kent and her company Opera & Ballet International have been responsible for bringing to the UK and Eire much of the Eastern European opera seen here in the last seven years. From her base at the Chatham Historic Dockyard, she has been working with the Chisinau National Opera since 1996 and last year the two companies signed an exclusive five-year contract, believed to be the first such contract between a major foreign national opera company and a British production company.