"Falstaff" and Music Theatre London

This film of Verdi’s incomparable comedy was based on Music Theatre London’s last stage production for the foreseeable future. It played to packed audiences at the Drill Hall Theatre in London in early summer 2005, before the cast decamped to a golf course in sunny Norfolk, which just happened to have closed for business the week before the film commenced shooting.

We hope “Falstaff” will be a lasting and fitting record of what the Times newspaper called “A European success story” and, yes we were successful. The Financial Times called us “revelatory…impassioned”, The Independent said that we “Bring to opera the kind of dramatic truth usually achieved only in straight theatre”, Time Out described us as “Stimulating, sexy, occasionally bitter” and so on. We played to enthusiastic houses in major venues across London and the United Kingdom, and in Germany, Holland, France, Austria and Belgium.

Our award winning Sony/ BBC television The Marriage of Figaro sold all over the world and television versions for NDR/ARTE of Cosi fan Tutte and The Magic Flute were well received in France and Germany. But all good things have to come to an end and ultimately one cannot run even a small organisation like MTL without funding. In the latter years the Drill Hall strove valiantly to support the company and we had a core of fantastically dedicated supporters who dug deep to make productions happen, but it was not enough. The libel laws preclude any discussion about the role of Arts Council England in the demise of MTL, suffice it to say that all the stories you may have read about ACE’s cack-handed attitude to its clients are probably true. But what’s done is done. We had a damned good run, a lot of fun and made many people happy. For those who don’t know about the work, or would like to be reminded, here is a brief history of what we think is a unique organisation:

The basic idea behind Music Theatre London started as a conversation between Nicholas Broadhurst and Tony Britten whilst they were working as Staff and Musical Directors, respectively, for The National Theatre’s Guys and Dolls in 1985. They discovered a shared passion about finding a means of de-mystifying opera. Putting these ideas into practice they organised a workshop of The Marriage of Figaro, presenting it as a music drama with actor-singers, and concentrating on re-establishing the importance of the text by experimenting with a new and colloquial translation. The success of the workshop led to a production at the Croydon Warehouse; and the unanimous acclaim with which it was greeted led almost immediately to a West End transfer to The Ambassadors Theatre.

Since that time MTL has continually questioned the conventional notion that Opera is about a sublime musical experience, which propels the entire production process. It is interesting to note that while “designer Opera” is still prevalent- i.e. big pictures and broad strokes, companies like ENO, Opera North and even the Royal Opera House are gradually coming round to the idea that if Opera is an all-encompassing art form then it had better pay attention to all the constituent elements. MTL, however, continues in the vanguard of the restoration of textual and dramatic values by it’s insistence on the importance of modern and relevant translations, performed by genuine actor-singers. Accompanied by a chamber group playing new orchestrations that ensure that every word is heard, we are able to present comedies that are actually funny, and tragedies that move and affect an audience in a way that we believe is unique.

Following the success of Figaro, Don Giovanni was produced in Greenwich, revived in Vienna, Stuttgart, and taken on an eight week British tour before arriving at the Barbican. In 1991 Figaro and Don Giovanni were presented by the Vienna Festival as part of the Mozart bicentennial celebrations, which led to the festival commissioning the company to create a new version of Rossini’s Cinderella the following year. This subsequently toured Britain and was presented as part of the London Opera Festival. In 1993 new stagings of Figaro and Don Giovanni were taken to Hamburg, Leverkussen, Essen, the Drill Hall in London and thence for a five week tour of Britain. The year’s new production, Cosi fan Tutte, opened in Hamburg where it was televised for NDR, and then transferred to Greenwich, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The 1994 season saw a revival of Figaro tour Holland, and a new production of La Traviata at the Donmar Warehouse which was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera. The year also saw the award –winning BBC2/ Sony Marriage of Figaro. The Poisoned Chalice, an original opera by Tony Britten, was mounted in co-operation with the Drill Hall.

In 1995, sponsorship from Zurich Re-Insurance funded a new production of The Magic Flute; performed at the Donmar Warehouse London, Hamburg (televised on NDR) and Amsterdam. This then toured to Plymouth, Edinburgh and Belfast in repertoire with La Traviata. The year ended with The Magic Flute playing in Holland, Belgium and Austria.

For 1996, the company presented two revivals, Don Giovanni and La Traviata, to tremendous acclaim. Don Giovanni ran for a season at the Drill Hall before visiting Amsterdam and, in tandem with La Traviata, undertook a five week UK tour, a return season in London and a tour of the Netherlands.

A continued relationship with Zurich Re in 1997 enabled a CD of Don Giovanni, a new production of La Boheme and a revival of Cosi Fan Tutte, all under the direction of Tony Britten, Nick Broadhurst having left the company to pursue his career in Germany. Both operas toured the UK twice - once in the autumn of 1997, and once in the spring of 1998, further developing relationships with Plymouth Theatre Royal, Liverpool Everyman, Brighton Theatre Royal and Sheffield. Both productions then undertook extensive tours of Holland

The same year, the Covent Garden Festival commissioned a new production of Die Fledermaus for its 1998 season; the production played for two weeks at the Arts Theatre before visiting Liverpool, Kings Lynn, the Drill Hall, Snape Proms and Amsterdam. In November, a film version of La Boheme was shot on location in South-east London, was screened by Channel 5 and has subsequently sold to broadcasters worldwide.

In 1999 a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin toured Newcastle, Colchester, Plymouth, High Wycombe, Newbury and Sheffield with a revival of Die Fledermaus, culminating in a London season at the Lyric Hammersmith.

In the Autumn, MTL took part in Take Note, a season of new writing at The Drill Hall, presenting Susanna’s Secret, The Mozart Cabaret, Adrenalin (a new musical by Nicholas Bloomfield and Howard Schuman) and The Poet (a new play with music by Tony Britten).

Christmas 2000 saw a brand new production of Cinderella at the Drill Hall, coupled with a seasonal “rediscovered” sequel – Cinderella 2, Gentleman prefer Wands, written by Tony Britten with music culled from other Rossini operas.

In 2003 we decided to have another look at the opera which saw the birth of MTL – The Marriage of Figaro. This became the centerpiece of a Drill Hall festival which included a workshop of a proposed film version of Don Giovanni, cabarets, the premiere of a new music theatre piece by Mary Lincoln and Tony Britten – A Cornish Secret and commissioned site specific “mini operas” which were subsequently turned into the television film Not Quite at the Opera. After a well earned rest we returned to the Drill Hall for Falstaff in 2005.

Music Theatre London is not defunct, merely dormant – in Arthurian terms, slumbering until its country needs it. Meanwhile, Capriol Films is waiting for the opportunity to make exciting film versions of the MTL repertoire; Don Giovanni, Die Fledermaus and La Traviata are scripted, budgeted and ready to go. The more broadcasters who show faith, the more people who buy the DVD’s currently available, the sooner we will be able to bring further Capriol/MTL opera films to a new generation and a wider market.