This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The economics of opera in England 1925-1939 Richardson, Helen Joanna Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 The Economics of Opera in England: 1925-1939 Helen Richardson King’s College London August 2019 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Abstract The focus of my study is the financial management of opera in the UK during the inter- war years. The early years of the 20th century were witness to huge shifts in the ‘business’ of opera as it progressed from the old model of elite patronage towards a more socially democratic art-form, in line with the class and moral changes of those times. This thesis presents a series of case studies that illustrate how opera in Britain was funded during the years prior to the formation of the Arts Council: in particular, they reveal how opera survived during these years, thanks to the efforts of several unsung heroes and their search for a financial solution. It has at its heart a simple question: why was it that opera in England, which had been profitable in the late years of the nineteenth century, was by 1945 financially unsustainable? My research, based primarily on business archives, reveals perspectives on changes in the ‘ownership’ of opera: from when it ceased to be a commercially viable enterprise to when it was partially funded by government and considered by some to be part of the welfare state. I use three case studies to illustrate social and economic changes in the British public’s relationship with opera and how different funding models were employed with varying degrees of success. The first investigates the efforts of Elizabeth Courtauld at Covent Garden during 1925-27; the second is a detailed investigation into the circumstances surrounding the first government grant to opera in 1930; the third considers the actions of John Christie at Glyndebourne during the period 1934-39. My analysis of these years makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the national operatic heritage and of the institutions and systems of funding of opera that exist today. 2 Contents List of Tables and Figures 4 List of Illustrations 5 Preface and Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 9 Chapter One Operatic Context and Legacies 30 Chapter Two The Courtauld Opera Seasons, 1925-27: The Ingratitude of Democracy 63 Chapter Three BBC Opera 1927-30: A Bankrupt State Subsidizing a Bankrupt Trade 100 Chapter Four BBC Opera 1930-33: The Opera Dole 141 Chapter Five Glyndebourne 1934-39: Myths of Enchantment 182 Chapter Six Conclusion: Five Dilemmas 219 Bibliography 239 The Copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. 3 List of Tables and Figures Tables 1.1 Capacity of Covent Garden Theatre after 1858 1.2 Subscription Revenue, 1858 1.3 Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richter, Covent Garden, Grand Opera Syndicate, 25 April 1910 1.4 Salome, Beecham, Covent Garden, 8 December 1910 1.5 Tristan und Isolde, Beecham, Covent Garden, 30 January 1913 1.6 The Mastersingers, Covent Garden, British National Opera Company, 29 June 1923 1.7 La traviata, Covent Garden, Grand Opera Syndicate, 3 June 1924 2.1 Lohengrin, Covent Garden, Courtauld, 25 May 1925 2.2 1925 Season Takings calculated from the London Opera Syndicate Press Statement, October 1925 2.3 Il barbiere, Covent Garden, Courtauld, 8 May 1926 2.4 Melba’s Farewell Gala, Covent Garden, 8 June 1926 3.1 Armide, Covent Garden, 3 May 1928 3.2 Tristan, Covent Garden, 29 April 1929 3.3 Covent Garden Opera Syndicate, Profit and Loss Account for 1928 and 1929 4.1 Autumn and Winter Seasons at Covent Garden 4.2 Capacity of the ‘House’ (Covent Garden) at Popular Prices 4.3 1931 Season Phasing of Government Grant Instalments 4.4 Covent Garden Opera Syndicate Losses 5.1 Bing’s Detailed Cost Analyses 1935-38 Figures 6.1 Summary of the Five Dilemmas 6.2 Five Dilemmas, Grand Opera Syndicate 6.3 Five Dilemmas, British National Opera Company 6.4 Five Dilemmas, Courtauld Opera 6.5 Five Dilemmas, Imperial League of Opera (ILO) 6.6 Five Dilemmas, Covent Garden Opera Syndicate and ILO Merged 6.7 Five Dilemmas, National Opera Bodies Merged under BBC Subsidy Arrangements 6.8 Five Dilemmas, Glyndebourne 6.9 Five Dilemmas, John Maynard Keynes’ Vision for the Arts Council 4 List of Illustrations 1.1 Augustus Harris as portrayed by Aubrey Beardsley 1.2 H.V. Higgins Esq., C.V.O., chairman of the Grand Opera Syndicate 1.3 ‘First Nighters’, circa 1925: audience at the first night of the season, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 2.1 Portrait of Samuel Courtauld IV by Roy de Maistre 2.2 Elizabeth and Samuel Courtauld at Garsington, 1926 2.3 Plaque installed at Portman Square in memory of Elizabeth Courtauld by Samuel 2.4 The Music Room, Mrs Courtauld’s drawing room, Portman Square 3.1 Beecham opening subscriptions for his Imperial League for Opera Appeal, 15th November 1927 3.2 An appeal for the ILO, 1927 3.3 Philip Snowden and his wife leave Downing Street with the budget box, London, 14 April 1930 3.4 Cover of Ethel Snowden’s book, The Feminist Movement 3.5 Ethel Snowden at Covent Garden, 26 November 1931 3.6 ‘The Prize Song’, Daily Express, 28 April 1930 3.7 ‘The Chancellor’s Musical Soul’, Evening Standard, 5 April 1930 3.8 Luncheon party at No 11 Downing Street to celebrate the subsidy: December 1930 3.9 ‘With two million people unemployed, Mr and Mrs Philip Snowden have donated £Ninety Two Thousand and Five Hundred Pounds to Grand Opera’ 3.10 ‘By this grant of £92,000 Mr Snowden is determined that Covent Garden shall no longer be a place for Englishmen to live in’ 4.1 Lady Ethel Snowden, circa 1931 4.2 Col. Eustace Blois, Rosa Ponselle, Romano Romani and Tullio Serafin, Covent Garden 1931 4.3 Program from Covent Garden Opera Syndicate’s English Opera Season, 12 October 1931 4.4 Lady Ethel Snowden at the piano, 24 November 1931 4.5 Lady Emerald Cunard, 7 October 1933 5.1 Audrey Mildmay photographed in The Lady, 9 May 1935 5.2 ‘Bayreuth on the Downs’, Daily Telegraph, 20 July 1933 5.3 Guests at Glyndebourne, Daily Sketch, 6 June 1934 5.4 1935 Festival Schedule 5.5 ‘English Salzburg’, Vogue, 12 June 1935 5.6 John Christie as Beckmesser, 1928 5.7 Lady (Austen) Chamberlain, Ethel Snowden and Princess Hohenlohe photographed in The Lady, 6 June 1935 6.1 Portrait of John Maynard Keynes by Roy de Maistre 5 Preface and Acknowledgements This research project began with my interest in opera and its funding. I embarked on the Masters at King’s in 2009 having completed my first degree at the Royal Academy of Music, 27 years earlier. I had worked in the city as a Chartered Accountant during the eighties and nineties and I realized that I could usefully combine my accountancy and finance skills with my interest in opera. I wrote my Masters’ dissertation tracing the progress of the Labour government’s opera subsidy in 1930-33, drawing on the business archives at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden from the interwar years. For the present doctoral study, I wanted to explore the topic further and write a thesis that combined urban musicology with economic musicology – both emerging subdivisions of musicology. While researching my dissertation, I realized that there was no economic history of opera in the UK, nor any more general economic history of opera. There are certain individual case studies that focus on particular areas of opera history and these were of great interest to me; but I was confused by the general perception that opera had never made money. This assumption warranted further investigation: it became clear to me that the financial model for opera had changed considerably during the first half of the twentieth century. I wanted to understand more about how opera had become part of the welfare state when it had only relatively recently been the exclusive preserve of the country’s aristocrats and gentry. I am fascinated by the endeavours of the promoters of opera during the first half of the twentieth century.