COUNCI L 'Sir Kenneth Clark, K .C .B., D .Litt., LL.D., F.B.A . (Chairman) •Wyn Griffith, O.B.E., D.Litt. (Vice-Chairman) T . E. Bean, C.B.E. •Professor Gwyn Jones Ernest Boden Robert Kemp *Sir William Coldstream, C.B.E. •Berm W. Levy, M.B.E. *Joseph Compton, C .B.E. *Professor Anthony Lewi s Lt: Col . Vere E . Cotton, C.B.E., T.D., J .P . 'Sir John McEwen, Bart., LL.D . Mrs. Hugh Dalton Miss C . V. Wedgwood, C .B.E. Sir Emrys Evans, LL .D. Hugh Willatt 'Member of Executive Committee SCOTTISH COMMITTEE Sir John McEwen, Bart., LL.D . (Chairman) D. K. Baxandall E. S. Harrison The Hon. Mrs . Michael Lyle Ernest Boden J. A. Henderson William MacTaggart, R .S.A . Charles Carter, F.M.A ., F.S.A. Robert Kemp Hugh Marshal l Colin Chandler Mrs . Eric Linklater John M. Playfair Charles Graves Miss Violet C . Young WELSH COMMITTEE Professor Gwyn Jones (Chairman) The Marquess of Anglesey Robert E. Presswoo d S. Kenneth Davies, C.B.S . Miss Frances Rees, O.B.E. Sir Emrys Evans, LL .D. Ceri Richards David Dilwyn John, T.D ., D .Sc ., F.M .A. Dr . William Thomas, C.B. Dr. Daniel Jones Mun Llylwelyn Williams J. Henry Jones, Ph .D. D. E. Parry Williams, D .Mus. Thomas Parry, D .Litt. STAF F HEADQUARTERS 4 St James's Square, London, S.W.1 (Whitehall9737) Secretary-General: Sir William Emrys Williams, C .B.E. Deputy-Secretary and Finance Officer : M . J. McRobert Art Director : Music Director : Drama Director : Gabriel White John Denison, M.B.E. J. L. Hodgkinson, O .B.E. Assistant Secretary: Eric W. White Accountant D. P . Lund, F.C.A. SCOTLAND Director : Dr. George Firth, O.B.E., 11 Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh, 3 (Edinburgh 34635/6) Deputy Director: Donald Mather WALE S Director : Miss Myra Owen, O.B.E., 29 Park Place, Cardiff, South Wales (Cardiff 23488) Deputy Director : David Peters RQ-Ct.+ivc- CDP y T H E A R T S COUNCIL OF G R E A T B R I T A I N ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N RESEARC' i7 A'%`-D INIFORMATION LIBRARY. THIRTEENTH ANNUA L REPORT 1957 -195 8 4 S T . JAMES'S SQUARE $ LONDON $ S . W, z _j DESIGNED BY MISS G. DRUMMOND MCKERRO W AND PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE BAYNARD PRESS CONTENTS Page 1 . THE THIRD FORCE OF PATRONAGE 5 2. NOTES OF THE YEAR 14 3. ART 33 4. DRAMA 38 5. MUSIC 46 6. OPERA AND BALLET 56 7. POETRY . 60 8. SCOTLAND 62 9. WALES 74 10. NOTES ON THE ACCOUNTS 83 APPENDICES : Appendix A The Arts Council of Great Britain : Audited Accounts 86 Appendix B The Council's Committee in Scotland : Audited Accounts 100 Appendix C The Council's Committee in Wales : Audited Accounts 106 Appendix D Arts Council Exhibitions held in Great Britain 112 Appendix E Subsidies from Local Authorities and Local Educatio n Authorities 114 Appendix F Some Selected Instances of Private and Industrial Patronage 122 A 1 THE THIRD FORCE OF PATRONAG E Recent events at Sadler's Wells have dramatised the condition of the arts in Britain. Last spring it seemed likely that an insufficient subsid y would compel the company to abandon its permanent status and submi t to a policy of brief, intermittent seasons. This autumn its survival on it s traditional basis seems assured by timely aid from two directions . The L.C.C. has given a grant of £25,000 for the current year, and Independent Television has produced a donation to the value of £5,000 for seven year s from A.B.C. These reinforcements to the Arts Council's grant of £150,00 0 will see Sadler's Wells safe until next April ; but apart from their short- term value they embody prospects of a more continuous kind. The A.B.C. gift is to be continued for seven years and has been made in the form of a tax-free covenant . The L.C.C., moreover, is considering whether to develop its rescue operation into an annual subvention and has instituted an enquiry of its own into the opera problem in London . Apart from these grants to Sadler's Wells another TV company, the A .T.V., has announced donations, amounting to £15,000, to several repertory companies, oper a companies, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and other bodies. Finally, the I.T.A. is raising a joint levy of about £100,000 among the TV companies in support of the arts generally . The immediate effect of these actions is a matter of solid satisfaction, but their potential consequences are far more significant. Municipal subsidies for the art s are no novelty by now, but if the L .C .C. should decide on a new pattern of patronage its example might establish similar values in other large cities . Donations from big business, too, have been assisting the arts on a modes t scale in recent years, but the readiness of independent television to adopt major responsibilities in this field encourages the hope that a Third Forc e of patronage is now emerging. The Sadler's Wells crisis of last spring revealed a situation which ha s been expounded for several years in the annual reports of the Arts Council . The last report, `Art in the Red', predicted that closures and calamitie s were inevitable unless the scale of public patronage of the arts was forthwith increased . The crisis at Sadler's Wells was a major demonstra - 5 tion of the need for bigger subventions for the arts . But there is a grave r crisis in the offing. The only national theatre we possess, Covent Garden , is running at a deficit which has reached alarming proportions ; and unless a substantial increase in its resources can be found immediately th e centenary of this famous house, celebrated with impressive ceremony a few months ago, may soon be followed by its demise. It is not only these large and historic institutions which are in jeopardy . Several of the permanent symphony orchestras are living from hand to mouth; many of the repertory companies lack sufficient means to moun t and rehearse their productions adequately ; such lively centres of initiative as the Ballet Rambert and the English Opera Group are frustrated in thei r efforts to explore and experiment . The rank-and-file of actors, dancers and musicians are underpaid . (Since 1946 the cost of living has risen b y about 60 per cent : but the wages of orchestral players have risen by n o more than 37 per cent in that period.) Unless we can effectively sustai n our smaller enterprises we shall cease to possess that strength at the to p which is currently displayed by such popular and distinguished institutions as the Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera House, the Old Vic, Stratford Memorial Theatre, Sadler's Wells, Glyndebourne and the Hall6 Orchestra . The pyramid of excellence must have a broad base and deep foundations . The Arts Council's plea for an increase in the present level of public subsidy is animated by the needs of its lesser beneficiaries as well as by those of the larger claimants. THE CASE FOR SUBSIDIES Although the scale of public subsidy for the arts is still less than i t should be, the climate of opinion on the subject is more favourable than it was a decade ago. `Let those who want it pay for it' is a less prevalen t gambit than it used to be in public discussions of these matters . Without public subsidy such arts as opera, ballet and symphony music, at their best levels of performance, would be beyond the means of the majority to enjoy in the theatre and the concert hall, for they cost more to provid e than they can reasonably expect to take at the door . In publicising the parsimony of our central and local governments to the arts in Britain it i s usual for the advocates of bigger grants to draw parallels with the far more benevolent habit of foreign countries . But those comparisons seem to make a meagre impression upon our legislators, and are indeed ofte n construed as evidence of continental indulgence in frivolities . There are more effective parallels nearer home. Of these one of the most apt is the 6 provision of public libraries at a current cost to public funds o f £16,000,000 a year. Public libraries are used by a minority, by less than a quarter of the population; and the books they supply are mainly fo r recreational reading and not for educational purposes . When this wide- spread system of public patronage was instituted, over a century ago, i t was designed in large measure to combat illiteracy, but in our time i t continues as an amenity wholly . provided at public expense . If we admit, as we do, a social necessity to spend £16,000,000 a year on our publi c libraries, how can we allow our comparable expenditure on music , drama, opera and ballet to shrink to about one-twelfth of that figure ? The notion may perhaps survive in the minds of some who have no t lately considered these matters that certain class distinctions are involved . The habitual visitor to the opera house and the concert hall is stil l imagined, perhaps, as a person of comfortable means, while the borrowe r from a public library is conceived to be a diligent but impoverishe d person improving his mind in a chilly bed-sitter .