No 42 -- Summer 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
The "old" and the "new" D'Oyly Carte is a subject that causes heated comment, so it may be as well to place my own feelings on record. I am inclined to believe that the old Company deliberately bankrupted themselves. Of course I can't prove this, but it is a fact that around 1970 DOC applied to the Arts Council for a grant for the first time, and were refused - presumably because they still had capital and the Arts Council only gave money to companies who absolutely couldn't survive without a grant. So, while the DOC had through the 1960s been living on their interest and surplus, in the 1970s it appears that they began to use their capital. Since the Goffin redressings of the 1950s, no new production had been mounted till 1972. In that year the Company did something they hadn't done since 1954 - they revived an opera (SORCERER) which had not been performed since the production was lost in the blitz. In 1975, they revived UTOPIA for the expensive Centenary Season. In 1977 they mounted an expensive new IOLANTHE. And all through the 70s they kept seat prices almost risibly low. They seemed to be spending money like there was no tomorrow. In other words, it would appear that they were deliberately spending their capital, in the expectation that when they had spent it all, they could go back to the Arts Council and say "We've no money, now may we have a grant please?" When they reapplied, the Arts Council, whose policies had in the meantime changed, again refused. The DOC had gambled and lost. End of Line.
Why the Arts Council refused the second time is not clear. There are those who believe that the Council deliberately didn't want the DOC at this point in time, because they were trying to set up New Sadlers Wells Opera, effectively as a replacement. It surely cannot be pure coincidence that this company was formed immediately DOC closed, and DOC reopened immediately NSWO closed? What is certain is that if DOC had succeeded in getting a grant it would have availed them nothing, for they would not have kept it for more than a few years. By then the restrictive pressures of the Thatcher government towards Arts spending, meant that the Arts Council were forced to cut their grants to most opera companies, and a number of others who deserved grants much more than DOC were forced to close.
Of course managerial policy had to change in the New DOC. I certainly never pretended to agree with the administrative policies of the old company. "D'Oyly Carte has yet to be dragged, screaming, into the 20th century" was a comment made in the 1960s by a friend of mine, and basically I agreed with the sentiments. What the old company had, which the new one lacks, is an artistic integrity. If the New DOC wishes to be regarded as the successor of the Old DOC as the arbiter of taste in how G&S should be performed, it needs to formulate a distinctive style for all its operas which will be accepted as the artistic standard against which all other companies' productions are measured. This is just what it is signally failing to do in mounting a series of one-off productions. Of course you can argue that this is what other opera companies do. Agreed, but no other operatic touring company in the world performs exclusively the work of a single composer, nor wishes to regard itself as the company representing that composer. Perhaps the Wagner opera house at Bayreuth may be considered an exception, but as far as I know, although their productions are sometimes controversial, they do have an overall policy for any particular season.
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