Tony Britten - Capriol comment

Streaming the Arts

2010-02-04T17:48:00.002Z

Last week I attended Midem, the annual beanfeast for anyone involved in the music business. Every January the Palais des Festival in Cannes plays host to a host of record company execs, publishers, promoters, distributors and probably far too many wannabies, who bravely sally forth to the south of France with the illusion that this year it will all happen for them.

I go to Midem under the auspices of the IMZ - The International Music Centre, based in Vienna. This slightly odd institution looks after the interests of producers and broadcasters of music and dance for television - so its fair to say that the membership might all count as wannabies! Certainly the earnest discussions and meetings on the IMZ stand seem to result in very little actual progress in co-productions and sales, although the daily Avant Premiere screenings are a welcome chance to see what people across the world have been up to in this worryingly niche market.

For the last few years, the question of finding the television arts audience and getting productions to them, at a time when conventional terrestrial broadcasters are reducing their arts coverage, has increasingly obsessed us all. (And don't believe the BBC's protestations about the quality and scope of their arts offerings, its more or less chimera). Its quite clear that there is an audience out there and a good way to reach them is via the internet. But there are quite a lot of problems.

There are still plenty of opera and concert relays to be had, if you like that sort of thing. The problem is that, whilst most countries in Europe still have State broadcasters who are required to broadcast a certain number of relays per year, the material is very often either mundane or ludicrous - this year's prize for crassness has to be awarded to Swiss Television, for their "groundbreaking" "La Boheme", filmed live in and around a Zurich tower block, which made my blood curdle.

So lots of investment is being poured into streaming and downloading arts events on the net and there were several very informative seminars about this at Midem. One particularly good session involved the new bosses of Medici - an American owned, pan European group of content producers and the British DVD company, Opus Arte, which is owned by the Royal Opera House.
The Medici man announced that they were streaming and downloading to hundreds of thousands of customers, but admitted that they were some years away from monetising the project and Opus Arte confessed that they weren't quite at the point of finalising a business plan for their yet to be launched download platform.

It was left to the floor to put some perspective on the proceedings. LSO live have been successful in getting their strong brand to its supporters, largely by CD, distributed conventionally as well as on the net. They, like the very impressive San Francisco Symphony Orchestra media operation largely eschew streaming and downloading, preferring to disseminate information and sales oulets via the net. Only the mighty Berlin Phil actually have a live streaming operation, their Virtual Concert Hall and their representative admitted that although in their first year they had over a million clicks on the site, this only translated to twenty thousand actual subscribers - a two percent success rate that seems to be mirrored wherever one looks in the magic world of classical streaming and downloads. Without the sponsorship of Deutche bank they would not be able to service even those twenty thousand people.

In addition, there are crucial elements which are the proverbial elephant in the room: Performers and Union agreements, copyright and publishing problems and - not mentioned very often, the fact that the copper wires that carry so much of the Internet, certainly in Europe are rather more suited to homemade clips on You Tube than high definition state of the art films. The average MP3 download carries a mere thirty percent or so of the actual musical information on a track - what on earth is the point of making beautiful high definition music films when they will end up looking as though they were shot with a handycam? (Always assuming you can download them cleanly in the first place)

Of course I'm being simplistic, the net will work for high quality television eventually, someone will work out how to pay for the content to be produced and get that content to the market in sufficient numbers - and that someone will make a lot of money and a lot of arts and music lovers very happy. Just don't junk your DVD player or your Sky Arts subscription quite yet!

Elizabeth Soderstrom

2009-11-23T23:19:00.002Z

Forty years ago, a boy soprano who had achieved some success was summoned by Pierre Boulez to play the not inconsiderable part of Yniold in Debussy's magical opera "Pelleas et Melisande". This was to be a seminal production at the Royal Opera House - Boulez had not long previously pronounced that all opera houses should be blown up, so goodness only knows how Sir David Webster, the outgoing boss at Floral Street managed to persuade him to enter the enemy encampment.

To be sure, Monsieur Boulez attached tough conditions to the engagement - he demanded a full week of orchestral rehearsals during the ROH orchestra's summer break - ( The orchestra were a pretty uncompromising lot at the time and guarded their time away from the house.) M Boulez also insisted that the part of Yniold - son of Golaud, Melisande's dysfunctional husband, must be played by a boy, which was never done, because the part was considered too difficult, musically and emotionally.

The great bass-baritone, Owen Brannigan suggested that the boy who had played Sam the sweep with him in "Let make an Opera" and Sem - or was it Ham - or Japhet in "Noyes Fludde" might fit the bill. The boy became part of what is still considered one of the ultimate casts and productions of "Pelleas". This lucky child was coached by Norman Feasey - the legendery ROH repetiteuir and also by a young, shy pianist - Roger Vignoles. (The boy's parents thought that Roger was the nicest person they had met in the classical music world because he took personal charge of them on the opening night).

The boy worked diligently, enough to secure the approval of his stage father Golaud - Donald Macintyre would unfailingly apologise to him every night after he threw him down onto an unforgiving, steeply raked stage. But the boy's favourite times were spent in Melisande's dressing room, where the impossibly beautiful Elizabeth Sodestrom would encourage, amuse and mother him.

Bronchitis meant that the boy had to miss two performances and the recording of the opera, produced by the legendary Paul Myers for CBS. But he was encouraged to visit Abbey Road studios, with his parents, on the final Sunday of the recording sessions. Reeling from bumping into Paul McCartney outside studio 2, he was spotted by M Boulez, who promptly stuck him in front of a microphone. The orchestra were asked to do an extra session, (CBS must have been furious) and the recording was made. Yniold has no scenes with Melisande and Ms Soderstrom was on her way back to her hotel. But she stayed for the evening, sending little parcels of peeled oranges into studio 1 for the boy, because he was still suffering, not only from bronchitis, but a suddenly accelerated puberty. The boy only saw her once more, at the press launch of the record, but he never forgot her, and never will.

Elizabeth Soderstrom was one of the truly great singers of the last century. She had a perfect voice, was beautiful and could really act - at a time when operatic sopranos generally contented themselves with standing and delivering, always centre stage. She was witty, charming, sexy and, above all, radiant with happiness. Maybe she was too nice - I only heard about her death on the 20th November from a friend, the obituaries have been too slow to appear. As they do, it will be a timely reminder that true artistry does not revolve around marketing teams, outlandish press stories and spurious record contracts.

The boy, by the way, was me. I am sad that Elizabeth has gone, but very happy with the brief memories. Sometimes one gets very lucky.

Gilbert and Sullivan series

2009-11-03T23:15:00.003Z

No excuses for the huge gap in my blogs, but a possible reason: I have been very busy with running the first Holt Summer Festival and producing and directing a five part series about Gilbert and Sullivan for Sky Arts. Of course this is a poor apology, but it will have to do.

The first Holt Festival was a resounding success, wonderful artists, beautiful weather - and we broke even! I am now planning next years festival, anyone within striking distance of North Norfolk, or interested in taking a holiday here in the first week of August 2120 should keep their eyes on the festival website: www.holtfestival.org More information will follow in due course.

As for Gilbert and Sullivan - well, I know a lot more about them than I did a year ago and its all pretty fascinating stuff. The enlightened folk at Sky Arts were keen to find an answer to the question why - why are G&S as popular now as they ever were? Simon Butteriss, G&S patterman extraordinaire and my co-conspirator in many theatre and television projects over the years, has written and presented a fascinating account. We are currently editing some six months of interviews and performance excerpts, which will be broadcast around the middle of next year. In the meantime, we are going to be exploring new initiatives to ensure that Capriol Films continues to make worthwhile music and arts films and - very importantly - gets them out to an increasingly important market.

We need people to buy our films on order that we make more of them. I intend to be a lot more organised about communicating our ambitions to all you arts starved bloggers - I promise! But you can help this process by buying our wares, details are on the homepage. As retail stores become less and less geared to selling anything other than major films and television series, we must embrace the power of the internet. The much vaunted down loadable future is still some way off - copper wires do not make for easy access, but DVD's of our material are still a very viable delivery source. We need to make our very high quality DVDs more universally available, even allowing for the present postal problems - and we will. More news soon.

Alfred Brendel

2009-02-05T00:04:00.002Z

As I type this, the great Alfred Brendel is playing Mozart on BBC2 - unusual eh? Not unusual that Brendel should play Mozart, of course - although sadly not in public anymore, since his farewell concert at the Musikverein in Vienna on the 18th December last. No, unusual, because BBC2 doesn't seem to pay much heed to cultural matters in general, yet alone broadcasting fairly esoteric stuff that dates back eight years or so. Is there a logic to this scheduling? In the rapidly fragmenting broadcast landscape, does it matter?

Yet another spin off from the DCD Media "empire" has just gone - well, sort of live, www.classicaltv.com promises much, but will presumably deliver little of contemporary relevance. This will be because, of course, there are so few music films being made, other than the statutory Proms broadcasts from the Beeb and a couple of "landmark" events a year from C4. Sky Arts does, of course perform miracles, but still with an almost exclusive reliance on back catalogue.

This mustn't turn in to yet another sad middle aged arts film maker's rant. (Nor indeed, be as badly constructed as the last sentence). The nub of it is simply this: in times gone by, artists of Brendel's stature would be sure of having their work recorded in sound and pictures, not least so that future generations could learn and be inspired. This still happens to a degree, but given that high class hi def video is so much easier and cheaper to produce now than when Brendel was at the height of his fame, should there not be more stuff being recorded and filmed?

I'm not nuts about simple performance relays -as anyone who has investigated my paltry oeuvre can attest - but I sure as hell am keen that the new Brendels don't get ignored in the scramble to maintain viewer ratings and set up Internet channels with the same old artists and repertoire. To be continued - I have to stop now 'cos this is the first blog I have attempted as a non smoker, (4 days only) and I'm starting to twitch!

New Year resolutions

2009-01-05T18:30:00.002Z

Of course, my resolution is to blog more frequently, if such a verb exists. 2008 has flown by in a flurry of effort to sell the films we have made and finance the ones we want to make. The result of these endeavours is that DVD's "Falstaff" and "Peter Warlock - Some Little Joy" are now available internationally, as well as from www.signumrecords.com - but if you are interested enough to read these musings you will, hopefully have already purchased these rather classy discs! The next Signum release will the film of "Boheme" that I made, based on my Music Theatre London production. This should be available in March - updates will appear on this site soon. Future production news is under wraps at the moment, but all will be revealed shortly.

"She Stoops to Conquer" will soon be available as part of a complete educational package - if you are an English literature or drama teacher, you will be getting a flyer in the post any day now. If you want to buy the DVD I'm afraid you will have to wait for a while, although if anyone from the USA or Canada is reading this, you can buy the film and documentary ("A Gooseberry Fool") in a boxed set from www.acornmedia.com from the 10th February. This is always asuming anyone is still checking into the blog, given my laziness over the last few months.

But be warbed, all will change in 2009, cyberspace will resonate with my bon mots and hopelessly subjective opinions!

She Stoops to Conquer

2008-02-06T14:09:00.000Z

At last we got it on air! Actually "at last" is a misnomer, Sky Arts transmitted the film and documentary ("A Gooseberry Fool - Oliver Goldsmith Stoops to Conquer) a matter of weeks after we delivered the master tapes. As promised, there is something on the website about the project, but there will be more as we explore ways of getting the films out to as many people as possible.

Both films received a great deal of press coverage, almost all of it very favourable, although one broadsheet was sniffy about the direction and acting in the main film, which rather begs the question - why bother making it pick of the day?

Congratulations to cast and crew for making this film so watchable and thanks to Sky Arts for helping to make it happen. There are more epics in the pipeline, but for now I must try and sell this one and - yes - do things like update the website!

She Stoops to Conquer

2008-01-06T13:22:00.000Z

My initial burst of enthusiastic blogging dissipated when Capriol Films went into production on our latest epic - "She Stoops to Conquer". Somehow, the time just passed and now I must return to cyberspace in the hope that someone out there is still checking the Capriol website - my apologies to any keen souls who have been.

Making a high definition film of a one hundred and forty minute play in sixteen shooting days was a tall order, but we managed it and I am very pleased with the result. Cast and crew were magnificent, the location, the lovely Wiveton Hall in North Norfolk, was perfect and the final post production at BSkyB went more or less according to plan - annoying equipment failures were mitigated by the keenness of the Sky editors and engineers.

Very soon we will be putting a "She Stoops" page on the main Capriol website, with stills, chat etc and Sky Arts, our co-producers will be doing something similar on their website - details to follow. Simon Butteriss's accompanying documentary "A Gooseberry Fool - Oliver Goldsmith Stoops to Conquer" will be broadcast on Sky Arts and Sky Arts HD on Saturday 26th January at 8.00pm, followed on Sunday 27th January, also at 8.00pm on the same channels, by the main film of "She Stoops". Those who cannot access Sky will have to wait until the DVD release, which will happen in the middle of the year, just as soon as we have raised some more money.

Money has been, predictably I suppose, an issue in this production, since the local screen agency, Screen East, found themselves ultimately unable to invest in the film. This has left a huge gap in Capriol's finances, so foreign TV sales, educational projects and DVD sales will be extremely important. If anyone reading this thinks they will be interested in purchasing the DVD containing the complete film and documentary, please add a comment - we'd really like to know! Do keep checking the website for the "She Stoops" page - I hope to have it up and running within a week or so.

George Melly

2007-07-08T19:39:00.000Z

In the early seventies, the Greyhound, Croydon, was home to pretty much every important rock band of the early seventies. But it didn't interest me. No, I went every Tuesday evening to the Lord Napier pub in Thornton Heath to see Alan Elsdon's band storm their way through Louis Armstrong, Pee Wee Russell and, occasionally and memorably, Bessie Smith, as interpreted by a guest vocalist - George Melly.

I must stress that I was not alone in these trad jazz excursions - I had, and still have a group of friends who shared my interest. We also liked Tom Lehrer - acerbic humour and jazz have always been good bedfellows, at least in the UK - Humphrey Littleton is testament to that theory. But if you liked your humour and your jazz broad and bucolic - George Melly was your man. Every time George appeared at the Napier, my little group of social misfits swelled to a manic crowd of under aged carousers, lapping up such tender arias as "Gimme a Pigfoot" and - of course "Nuts" George's only chart hit. A couple of times I spoke to the great man after the gig and was rewarded on both occasions by being kissed - a brandy fuelled expression of bonhomie rather than a sexual statement, I remain convinced.

Immediately following this musical baptism, I went to Music College, where Joseph Horovitz encouraged me to write my thesis on post war British Jazz, rather than "wasting my time with Beethoven string quartets". Since there was only one textual source available, I was forced to research my project in the jazz pubs and clubs of London - an activity that I embraced with enthusiasm. Needless to say, George was part of this source material, not only through his performances, but his autobiography of his life as singer with Mick Mulligan's band, "Owning up". This book is the best and funniest account of the trad boom of the fifties and early sixties and along with "Revolt into Style", his highly regarded history of the emergence of pop culture would alone cement his reputation as a fine and authoritative writer.

In the late eighties I was commissioned by a friend, Phil Partridge, to write the title song for a sitcom pilot he was producing at the BBC. We both agreed that George was the man to sing the song and, much to our surprise and delight, he agreed with alacrity. The only proviso was that we give him lunch before the recording - which resulted in a wonderful cabaret, followed by a session which Phil and I were too pissed to recall, other than that George performed with consummate professionalism, despite his stupendous intake of alcohol.

Entertainer, singer, surrealist, art critic, film critic, writer, angler - George Melly lived many joyous lives. I mourn his passing as if he were a close friend - many many people assuredly feel the same way. The world is now a poorer and drearier place.

The Kathleen Ferrier awards

2007-07-03T18:16:00.000Z

Who can forget the unique sound of the great Kathleen Ferrier, a creamy contralto allied to perfect diction and that indefinable ability to get truly inside whatever she was singing, be it "When I am Laid" or "Blow the Wind Southerly". Her early death seemed to embed her in the public consciousness and the awards created in her name keep her name well and truly alive.

Over the last few months I have heard performances from two recent Kathleen Ferrier award winners, both sopranos. Elizabeth Watts won the prize last year and went on to win the Rosenblatt Recital song prize at the Cardiff Singer of the world competition last month, narrowly failing to pick up the overall prize. Laura Mitchell won the Ferrier song prize this year and will no doubt continue her ascent.

Both young ladies are still in their late twenties, but they exhibit a precocious ability in recital, perhaps a far more difficult arena than the opera stage. Miss Watts won this year's outstanding young artist award at the MIDEM classical awards in Cannes. Part of the prize was an appearance at said awards - a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. About three hours into an interminable celebration of the self satisfied mediocrity of the classical recording business, Miss Watts made her appearance, to sing a couple of Mozart arias. My heart went out to her - those that hadn't already escaped to the delights of the Croisette were numb with boredom and indifferent to more or less anything. The young singer must have sensed this, but she still gave us an exquisite ten minutes, which made the whole dreary event worthwhile.

Last night, Laura Mitchell had an easier ride - a small but enthusiastic audience at Simon Rowland-Jones's enterprising North Norfolk Music Festival. Miss Mitchell, accompanied with great flair and sensitivity by the young Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski, performed songs by de Falla, Albeniz, Rodrigues etc with consummate skill, style and charm. The artists took turns in presenting the material, with never a moment of awkwardness or cliche, just proper professional poise and - yes - charm, which is very hard to bottle and harder still to teach.

My point is that Elizabeth Watts and Laura Mitchell can not only sing beautifully - that has to be a given, but clearly know how to deal with the performance situation and can really communicate with the audience- be it a thousand bored executives in a huge ugly cinema or a hundred "mature" music fans in a remote Norfolk Church. Onward ladies, Kathleen is smiling down on you, although she is perhaps wondering when it will be the turn of a contralto!

Opus Arte

2007-06-04T17:05:00.000Z

Well, well, well, the Royal Opera House has announced its acquisition of the DVD producer and distributor Opus Arte, for £5.7 million. This figure apparently includes £2 million of debt, which has been refinanced through venture capital. The Arts Council approves the deal and, presumably the city financiers will have done fairly exhaustive due diligence, given the volatility of this market, so we must presume that the enterprise will be glorious and profitable.

The profitability so far as the ROH is concerned doesn't, however, seem destined to fund much in the way of new productions. A figure of $593,000 is quoted by the New York Times as being Opus Arte's latest and Tony Hall, boss of the ROH is signalling that this is the level that he expects to continue. Its not going to go all that far given the squillions that are currently spent at Floral Street, even allowing for the fact that, again presumably, the income per disc will be set for the ROH at a rather higher level than for other third party producers.

This begs the question of why buy into Opus Arte? Hans Petri runs the label efficiently and deserves to be rewarded for his success. But wouldn't it have been easier and a lot more transparent for the ROH simply to start its own label, in the same way that the London Symphony Orchestra did? The LSO and many other organisations such as The Sixteen, have had a good deal of success with these own label ventures - The ROH brand is surely strong enough to be self supporting. Or maybe in this great cacophony of corporate media - speak, (and precious little about the artistic ramifications), I've missed something?

Damien Hirst

2007-06-01T22:57:00.000Z

Tonight I settled down in front of NewsNight review, having returned from the Holt Bookshop, where the very talented Jeremy Page was signing copies of his debut novel, "Salt". (An evocative and beautifully crafted book, set in north Norfolk - worth buying). News Night revue is always worth a look, although it seems to have been diluted by the absence of people like Germaine Greer, Tony Parsons and their bunch of wonderfully acerbic and often wildly subjective pals.

Tonight's programme consisted of an extended interview with Damien Hirst, gently quizzed by a slightly out of her depth Kirsty Wark - was there a lot of editing, or am I being uncharitable? Mr Hirst speaks very fast, nearly as fast as he earns money from his art, or, to be more accurate, his art factory - the existence of which Mr Hirst cheerfully admits. I don't have the knowledge of visual art to make a judgement about the work, the artist is obviously fiercely intelligent and his success is a rather encouraging poke in the eye to the Establishment.

However, I do wonder if NewsNight were not rather beautifully conned, the new exhibition at the White Cube Gallery will no doubt be attended by all of London's rather nebulous group of movers and groovers, but does it actually reflect art in its broader and more vital sense? I don't subscribe to the view that figurative painting is the acme of artistic endeavour; its like saying that just because Brian Eno doesn't play the piano as well as Stan Tracy his work has no place. In other words, anyone who makes good art has a place - the trick is defining what is good.

My concern is that fourteen million pounds worth of diamond encrusted skull -Mr Hirst's latest work, seems to have caught the imagination of the arts commissars in a rather sordid fashion. , There again, it could be argued that this piece is no different from a Faberge egg - exquisite and destined for the mega rich - and therein lies the rub. Damien Hirst spoke well and sensibly in his interview tonight, but I can't help thinking that there are other creative artists who would have benefited more from thirty minutes of precious screen time - the Hirst empire really doesn't need it.

Mariella Frostrup

2007-05-28T11:30:00.000Z

I have finally got round to reading an interview in last Monday's Independent with Mariella Frostrup - she of the blond hair and gravelly voice, who when not lending her gravel to innumerable voice overs for TV adverts, presents the Book Show for Sky Arts. Bravo to Mariella for the last sentence in her piece: "I don't think I'm the only person for whom its harder and harder to find something I want to watch on television". She is, of course echoing a sentiment that is becoming more prevalent as television programming becomes less geared to an important sector of the audience.

Of course it is silly to wear rose tinted specs - there is still a lot of fine programming available and when the BBC, in particular present series such as Andrew Marr's new history of Britain and the estimable "Seven Ages of Rock" we should all breath a sigh of relief. But Mariella's point about the stranglehold on arts television by Melvyn Bragg and Alan Yentob is well made; these gentlemen run a fiefdom which is well nigh impregnable, which is bad news not only for other practitioners, but the for audience.

I do a lot of business with Sky Arts and, although they don't actually have much money to spend, I agree wholeheartedly with Ms Frostrup that they are "clever people" and that they realise that audiences are "sick of being fed patronising rubbish". Sooner or later, other enlightened broadcasters will connect with this and think seriously about aiming interesting and varied arts programming at the not inconsiderable niche that is currently somewhat disenfranchised. Whether this material is provided conventionally or by video on demand, IPTV and all the other new delivery methods, is the exciting bit - all we have to do is find a way of financing the films that will, I believe, ultimately be needed in sharply increasing amounts.

I have one caveat with last week's interview: Please, Mariella, don't bother with the feminist angle. I'm sure you have had to work proportionately harder to get where you are than if you were a man, but the reality is that British television has an unusually high proportion of women in senior and key positions. Indeed, in arts presentation, Newsnight Review regularly features Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney as presenters - one might argue that it would be better to use people who are actually from the world they are analysing, but these ladies don't do a bad job. So, Mariella, maybe don't be bashful about your undeniable good looks and charm - use them in conjunction with your passion for the arts and create a quiet revolution from within the system.

Farewell to Music Theatre London

2007-05-24T18:55:00.000Z

Music Theatre London has been a significant influence on opera performance practice over the last fifteen years. It has, I hope given pleasure to a lot of people and provided employment for a lot of actors, musicians and technicians, (albeit at the lower end of the financial scale!) But, like all good things, it must come to an end.

I had long ago given up applying for finance from the Arts Council - MTL was clearly considered to be "not quite the thing" and the application process is so convoluted that it only seems to work for large companies, who can afford the time and personnel to wade through the paperwork. its also fair to say that I have not been popular with the funders - some years ago a senior figure in the touring department declined an invitation to a production because she was "scared of Tony Britten" - which either means I'm some sort of psychopath or she was a tad on the inadequate side.

Sponsorship is also hard to come by unless you can devote a massive amount of time to it and I need to spend a massive amount of time making Capriol Films a success. So the trustees of MTL have decided that we will make the company dormant. This does not preclude starting up again in the future, or indeed trading under the name if an interesting offer to produce a show from a third party comes our way.

I will be making strenuous efforts to produce more films like "Boheme" and "Falstaff", there is, after all a quite large catalogue of MTL productions which lend themselves very well to this medium. So if anyone reading this has not registered their interest in future television, DVD and Internet downloads of MTL material, please, go to the contacts page on this website and let us know that you want to be kept in touch. You are part of a niche market that is increasingly poorly served by conventional broadcasting and I intend to do something about it.

Sky Arts Falstaff

2007-05-21T18:47:00.000Z

Oh dear, another sales pitch! As I type this, our very funny version of Verdi's "Falstaff" is being broadcast on Sky Arts. If any one is watching, or wants to watch when it is repeated on Wednesday at 2.00pm, Thursday at 10.00am! or Sunday at 2.oopm, please - enjoy.

But perhaps more importantly for Capriol and our plans for the future, we will be putting out a DVD early next year, in partnership with a leading classical CD company. If enough people want to buy the DVD, which will also contain a "behind the scenes" documentary and, hopefully, a very silly and amusing five minute short made by some of the cast, we will make it available in advance for a discount price. If you are keen on this film, please go to the contact us section of this website and register your interest and we will attempt a "rush release!"

And now I must rush!

Keep on doing it

2007-05-08T22:01:00.000Z

"Keep On Doing It" is the title of a track by saxophonist Tom Scott, which we aspiring jazz rockers used to play in the seventies. I daresay if I were to get together with some of the musicians I knew from that time, we could still play it - after a fashion. That's because musicians, like actors, do keep on doing it, long after normal folk would be tending the roses and sipping their Ovaltine.

On Sunday evening I was at the reunion of people closest to the legendary Olympic Studios, in Barnes, South West London. It was twenty years ago that Olympic was purchased by Virgin, and Bransonised into a state of the art modern studio complex, devoid of character, decent sound and fun. One day I will write about Keith Grant, the engineer who ran Olympic from the start until the takeover and who's musical brilliance was matched by his terrifying expertise at practical jokes.

But I was struck on Sunday by how the musicians attending were still fulfilled; older, generally poorer, but making music on their terms and distilling years of experience into an art which keeps them youthful. Then on Monday I was at a fiftieth birthday party for an old girlfriend, who plays the trumpet in a big band. A segment of the band was playing, and I was delighted by the storming trumpet playing of a guy named Ronnie Hughes, once a top flight pro, now, well into his eighties, playing jazz, unfettered by concerns about the next gig, his status and all those things that make professional life so difficult.

Actors are the same, they only tend to stop when they drop. I was going to comment that there must be some connection between performing and longevity, but then I remembered that politicians tend to go on for ever as well. Oh well.

Genius and Craft

2007-04-17T19:09:00.000Z

Many years ago, when I was working at the National Theatre, I met a very charming man , Bill Byers, who died about ten years ago. Bill had been contracted to orchestrate a rather disastrous new musical, "Jean Seberg". He was at that time the doyen of American arrangers, dividing his time between Hollywood movies and Broadway shows. As a fairly busy arranger myself at the time. I was humbled, not only by his skill. but by his craft. I would write fast and rely on my ever loyal copyists to correct my mistakes - my main guy reckoned he could tell how late I'd worked the night before and whether I had resorted to the brandy bottle. Bill wrote faster, in ink and never made mistakes.

This may be music biz trivia, but Bill was, in his way, a genius. Maybe he wasn't a genius in the way that Mozart or Bach were, but they shared with him an extraordinary concentration and craftsmanship which was a crucial part of their genius - look at facsimiles of their manuscripts, hardly a crossing out, music flowing as fast as the pen could. The craft and art were inseparable in the same way that Picasso could draw conventionally faster than most men could talk and Shakespeare somehow managed to write hundreds of thousands of words with scarcely a dud phrase.

Have spell checks, movie writing and music composing software blunted this art and craft symbiosis? I hope not, because I can't help thinking that you can't have one without the other.

A Salaried Wit

2007-04-16T22:17:00.000Z

After a few days spent filling in the sixty five pages, in triplicate, plus supporting documents for an application to the MEDIA 2007 development fund of the EU, I am all but spent, as it were. So all I can muster for this blog is a sales pitch; The Gramophone, that estimable source of all things to do with recorded music, has given Capriol Films a nice review. This is for our DVD of "A Salaried Wit - Grossmith, Gilbert and Sullivan", a one hour documentary with performance written and presented by the multi talented Simon Butteriss.

Simon is the modern day version of George Grossmith, Gilbert and Sullivan's original "patterman" and comic inspiration and, at the risk of sounding big headed, I believe the film is excellent. (I would do, I produced and directed it). If you haven't sampled it already, why not go to the Capriol home page, and then to the Salaried Wit page and download some excerpts. Excited by these and fuelled by the Gramophone review, you will doubtless want to purchase the DVD, which you can do by hitting the link from our website.

That's it for sales talk, tomorrow I will revert to neutral analysis of something more altruistic, whilst quietly dreaming that music and arts fans the world over will buy "A Salaried Wit" and enable Simon and I to get cracking on our next collaboration, details to be revealed in due course.

The American Way

2007-04-09T20:43:00.000Z

And so, a Saturday matinee of "Little Shop of Horrors" at the Duke of York's Theatre. A family group, age range 15 - 58 who all enjoyed the show, even if they were a little less demonstrative than me. We left the theatre and walked up St Martins Lane past the Albery, sorry the Coward Theatre, where the equally engaging "Avenue Q" is playing. Both shows are small scale, albeit with wonderful puppetry at "Avenue Q" and a truly monstrous walking talking plant at "Little Shop". Young and manically hard working casts, loud but undistorted music and imaginative, 'tho hardly revolutionary design and direction.

The recipe for Broadway and West End Success? Well, yes, but there has to be more than that, and if British musicals writers could crack the formula there might be genuine competition for the successful, but somewhat portentous monopoly of Lord Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber's music may nod towards Puccini and Mendelssohn, to name two well known examples, but it does at least reflect his compositional voice. The music for "Little Shop" and "Avenue Q" is actually much more derivative, but the shows undeniably work.

Perhaps it is because the composers unashamedly plunder Broadway. We know we have heard the songs before, but they are so rooted in the genre that it doesn't seem to matter. The three girls of the chorus in "Little Shop" (and I mean chorus in the Greek tradition) are named Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette and their music tells us so. The wonderfully un PC "Every one's a Little bit Racist" in "Avenue Q" traces it's musical roots directly to vaudeville.

So, British composers and lyricists- its simple - go back the the Beatles, or George Formby or Gilbert and Sullivan and we can look forward to a West End full of home grown musicals.

Or maybe not.

Satyagraha

2007-04-06T09:51:00.000Z

I'm afraid I'm already breaking my undertaking not to post negative comments. Imagine you are a child, messing around on the family piano. You find the chord of C major and then work down - C major, B flat major, A flat major, G major - bingo! You have Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Why should I die" sequence from "Jesus Christ Superstar", which as you may recall, goes on for quite a while. It is as nothing compared to what I heard last night at EnglishNational Opera - the same four chord sequence played for the first twenty five minutes of the British premier of Philip Glass's Satyagraha. This was followed by about fifteen minutes of a three chord sequence and then topped off nicely with a chunk of frenetic woodwind action.

During this time the singers intoned some quite pleasant, defiantly tonal lines in Sanskrit- without sur titles, just some projected scene headings. (Funny that, ENO has a policy of opera in English with surtitles). The director, Phelim McDermott, from the wonderful Improbable Theatre, did what he could, but was reduced to making the cast wander round in a kind of African Noh play torpor, which induced in me a torpor that lead to sleep, snoring and disapproval from the person next to me. I felt obliged to leave at the first interval.

Philip Glass writes extremely clever and sometimes mesmerising systems music, the ENO chorus and orchestra were as impressive as ever - the last ten minutes of act one seemed to have no gap for breathing, and the singers and woodwind players pulled it off magnificently. But in the end, is it opera? I think not, it is some form of stylised oratorio, totally lacking in the musical and thus theatrical dynamic which defines good music theatre of any type. Please, ENO, look around you at the plethora of wonderful writers and composers in the UK, and give them a chance. The last homegrown "new" opera, (and I don't count the recent Gaddafi experiment) was Turnage's "Silver Tassie" - A long time ago, but genuine opera and hugely successful.

Crossover

2007-04-04T09:26:00.000Z

I have been involved in my fair share of crossover music over the years - some of it good - Georghe Zamfir playing Bartok on the panpipes, some of it reasonable - Judy Collins singing "Jerusalem" and some of it, a Little dodgy.

As composer of the Champion's League anthem, which crosses over fairly firmly with Handel, I have been responsible for the on pitch musical entertainment at several European Cup finals. The Opera Babes had their first outing in Munich some years ago, standing in the middle of the pitch and puzzling the fans, who had no idea what they were doing there. Then there was the final between Bayern Munich and Valencia at Milan's mighty San Siro ground. the whole event was opera themed and various "crossover" artists performed to a completely indifferent crowd who were only there for the football. Various UEFA bigwigs were urging me to cancel the big event and as the entire chorus of La Scala Milan filed on to the pitch to sing, unaccompanied Verdi's "Va Pensiero" I confess my heart was in my boots. Eighty thousand rabid German and Spanish fans started to calm down and with the exception of some Leder hosen louts, who were hushed by the rest of the crowd, the choir performed to virtual silence and tumultuous applause.

Crossover? - not a bit of it, just great music doing its thing. Last night's Harvey Goldsmith tutorial on channel four was just the opposite - a small opera company desperately trying to make its mark by coming up with - "Arias on Ice". Enough said, what will be next? Concerto's in caves? Symphonies in swimming pools? I'm not a snob, by all means lets have crossover - I've done very nicely out of it, but let's not get to the point of forever patronising the audience - it doesn't give them a chance.

John Lennon

2007-04-03T09:49:00.000Z

A million years ago I produced and directed the music for an American television film rather unimaginatively entitled "John and Yoko - a love Story". Sitting in an edit room at Abbey Road Studios transferring actual Beatles master tapes,(and what a lot of edits there were) was an existential experience. As I recall, the film was quite good, although, like most Lennon bio-pieces it tended not to dwell on Lennon's undoubted darker side - although it didn't airbrush his "lost weekend" with May Pang and a gun toting Phil Spector in California.

Like most people of my generation, I can remember what I was doing when Lennon was shot as clearly as I can remember, (as young child!), Kennedy's demise. Watching the documentary "The US v John Lennon" last Friday served to underline the importance of a man who used his fame to promote his cogent but naive theories on world peace. Cynics then were dismissive,as they now are of our honorary Irish knights Geldorf and Bono. True, Lennon didn't raise millions for a starving third world, but his clarion call for a simple objective, whether from a bed in Amsterdam or a concert in Ann Arbor, resonates down the years. The urgent simplicity of songs like "John Sinclair," performed at Ann Arbor, masked a musical sophistication that is often overlooked. The cynics can hardly gainsay the romantic eloquence of "Beautiful Boy" or the power of the four bars of "Give Peace a Chance", which became the anthem for the international peace movement.

Lennon's opposition to the Vietnam war was focused enough to bring him to the unwelcome attention of J. Edgar Hoover, the spiritual guide to the present gang of neo-cons who run the White House, and thus the world. Where is today's John Lennon, someone driven enough to be a fool to fight the foolishness?

The Star Factor

2007-04-02T10:37:00.000Z

Looking at a picture of the captivating Danielle de Niese as Cleopatra in yesterday's Sunday Times, I was transported back to Glyndebourne 2005. David McVicar's vibrant production of Handel's "Giulio Cesare" introduced this young star in such a way that it had a preponderance of red faced gentlemen struggling with their bow ties and praying for the paramedics. De Niese's sex charged kitten was ably countered by Sarah Connolly's magnificent Cesare, and for once the interminable do capo arias flew by.

More recently my heart was recaptured by Natalie Dessay in Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" at the Royal Opera House - a performance which had wit, charm and vocal gymnastics in equal measure. Ms Dessay was partnered by the young Peruvian tenor, Juan Diego Florez, who's insouciant top C's had the blue rinsed heads and pearls bobbing and rattling in ecstasy.

Both these productions are, or will be available on DVD, from Opus Arte I think, (although this, plus relays for the BBC in the UK, ORF in Vienna and, presumably cinema shows from the Met does seem to be egging a confection which is probably the silliest opera plot of all time). I will buy these discs, which will doubtless afford me much pleasure in my dotage, but it does beg a question:

What about all the hundreds of opera DVD's currently available? There are something like ten "La Traviata's" listed, do people really want all of them? Owning a copy of a performance one has seen and loved is one thing; are there people out there who, like serious classical CD collectors, have to have every version? If that is the case, are they not disappointed by the countless rather less inspiring offerings that often emanate from quite mundane productions that cost relatively little to film? If the model works, then full marks to the various companies issuing these discs, but I have a feeling that this rush to immortalise singers and productions you have never heard of is somewhat finite.

Not an April Fool

2007-04-01T13:05:00.000Z

This may seem like a less than propitious date to launch the Capriol weblog, but I had to start sometime. The article in today's "Observer" about the BBC also galvanised me into action. Assuming this is not a 1st April jape, it would seem that the BBC intends to instigate a review entitled "household value", which essentially addresses the concern that the corporation is too "upmarket". Whilst it is true to say that this publicly funded organisation should endeavour to serve the needs of all of its audience, it does raise concerns about the amount of money and screen time that may be allotted to the arts on television in future.

More broadly, this ties in with the long term aim of this blog - to look at the performing arts in the UK and beyond and try to create new synergies with broadcasting for the new age. The concept of the "long tail" has been much trumpeted, but it is surely going to be an important part of the future of broadcasting. The concept of relatively small communities who want to watch what is increasingly being labelled "niche material" is here today and will be widely in use tomorrow.

I want to create an online community that discusses the performing arts in a non elitist manner. Further down the line, as Capriol Films increases its reach via DVD sales and Internet protocol television (IPTV), the community can tell us what films they would like to see and we can ask them if the films we want to make might interest them. I'm not talking about conventional opera/concert/stage relays, although these have their place, (more in a future posting). I'm really interested in the more quirky types of film that I strongly believe can engage a contemporary audience.

For the time being, lets try and create a forum of good humoured comment - if something that I have seen or researched interests me I will talk about it, if something appalls me, (and plenty does!) I will probably not. In a world beset with bad news this might be refreshing!

So in this spirit I will return to the BBC - its not all bad news when you can watch two hours of Chris Douglas and Nigel Planer's sublime creation, Nicholas Craig, tonight at 9.00pm on BBC4. He will doubtless have his view on this blog - hopefully lots of people will - tell your Friends and voice your opinions!

Tony Britten

Getting ready

2007-02-28T11:24:00.000Z

We are at what is commonly called the "beta phase" 0f the Capriol weblog. In layman's terms this is an acknowledgement of my technophobia. Will be online within a few days - watch this space.