THE BRITISH COUNCIL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 9

THE BRITISH COUNCIL

EFFECT OF CUTS IN BUDGET PLANS FOR N.Z. TOURS SHELVED (From Our London Correspondent.) LONDON, November 30. New Zealanders and Australians who heard the famous Boyd Neel orchestra this year, and are already looking forward to the Old Vic Theatre Company’s tour early next year, now know something of the fine work which is being done all over the world iby the British .Council. This organisation sponsored both tours and, until the current financial crisis burst about our ears, was going ahead with plans to send these two Dominions further choice samples of English art and culture. But the British Council’s budget has been cut and it has had to abahdon many of its more ambitious schemes. Sir Angus Gillan, one of its directors, told me the other night that the council will have to concentrate now on countries which have not yet been fortunate enough to receive any tours. New Zealand and Australia will have to give way to Canada and South Africa. “That is, unless your Dominion Governments can come to our aid,” said Sir Angus. “It is not for me to suggest it, of course, but if your people in New Zealand and Australia have enjoyed and valued what little we have been able to do for them, and are willing to spend some money on further tours, it is possible that we on the British Council might be able to share some small part of the expense involved in order to carry on this great work.” Visit to Covent Garden The week before I met Sir Angus I went to Convent Garden Royal Opera House to see the recentlyformed English Opera Group present its fascinating productions of Benjamin Britten’s latest two masterpieces —“The Rape of Lucretia” and “Albert Herring.” In the cast is Denis Dowling, the New Zealand baritone who is.-capturing headlines over here, and the Australian, Joan Cross. Mr Dowling took me back stage after the performance and there I met Eric Crozier, one of the group’s directors. The occasion was an auspicious one, for that night the company was celebrating its 100th performance of “The Rape of Lucretia.” the auspices of the British Council it had just returned from a tour of the Continent, where it won sensational success. Newspapers reduced in size to four pages nevertheless devoted. column after column to what they termed “this triumphant resurgence of British music.” Whole front pages were devoted to displaying photographs of the two works and to reviews of the productions. The Lausanne “Gazette” said: “The British must be overjoyed at finding among them a talent like that of Benjamin Britten, who ■ seems destined to give new life to English opera.” French correspondents in Switzerland telegraphed excited reports to their offices, which immediately demanded that the group should present a season in Paris. All the principal music festival committees of the Continent also put in requests. In England the 8.8. C. has devoted entire special broadcasts to them, publishers have brought out whole books dealing just with these two works, one of the gramophone companies has recorded one of the operas in complete form, and the film companies have made tentative approaches. Interest in N.Z. America is clamouring for a six months’ tour of the States. But the group wants to visit New Zealand and Australia. The two Dominion singers in the cast, Denis Dowling and Joan Cross, have extolled the virtues of their native countries, until everyone is eager to visit them. “There was every possibility that the British Council, with whom we work in close association, would send us to the Pacific,” said Eric Crozier “but the new budget cuts seem to have knocked that scheme on the head unless your Governments are prepared to lend a helping hand. America would probably be a profitable and enjoyable tour for us all. But America has so much in the way of music, and we would rather visit two British countries that have done so much for England, and that have little real musical and stage life of their own. “Boyd Neel has told us of the wonderful reception he got from the two Dominions, and mentioned particularly the rapturous acclaim with which New Zealand received the music of Benjamin Britten. This makes us all the more eager to take these works —the pinnacles of his career to date—to people of our own blood who would really appreciate them. Britten himself would accompany the group, as he is one of our conductors.”

I mentioned this conversation to Sir Angus Gillan a week later. “If our plans had not been curtailed,” he said, “we would probably have sent you this company. We might still be able to help if your Governments would offer financial aid. But the initiative must come from them.”

So it seems that, if New Zealand is willing to give a lead, and spend a few thousand pounds of the reserve it has built up for cultural purposes from radio licence fees, it can have a tour from one of the finest opera groups in the world to-day. The group is small, and uses a “chamber” orchestra of 12 instruments, so the expenses are only a fraction of those of a normal company.