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Images in the Collection of the
Royal Opera Archives; Their Preservation and Use
Francesca Franchi
(London)
Documentation et Art de
l'Acteur
Records and Images of the Art of the Performer
18ème Congrès
International, Stockholm 3-7 septembre 1990 / 18th
International Congress, Stockholm 3-7 September 1990
Editor: Barbro Stribolt (Drottningholms Teatermuseum).
Stockholm : 1992, p. 107-110
There has been a theatre
at Covent Garden since the first Theatre Royal, Covent
Garden opened on 7 December 1732. Although there is a
reference to a Covent Garden Museum in the 18th century,
it does not seem as though any serious attempt to record
the theatre's history was made until the early years of
this century. An article in the Musical Times of 1st
March 1925 entitled "The Covent Garden Museum"
records: "Thanks to the industry and intelligent
interest of Mr. Richard Northcote, the historian of our
major opera house, London possesses today an opera
museum, more modest perhaps, but not less interesting
than the collections at La Scala and Paris". The
article lists some of the contents of the museum, which
is housed in the theatre foyers and includes
correspondence, playbills, prints, costume jewellery and
momentos.
Richard Northcote was a retired journalist with a
substantial private income and his post as
archivist/historian of Covent Garden was a voluntary one.
His interests appear to have lain solely in the operatic
history of Covent Garden, and his connection with the
theatre ceased shortly before his death in 1931. Apart
from an apparently unsuccessful attempt to establish a
Covent Garden Museum in 1935, no serious effort was made
to reestablish Archives until the theatre reopened after
the end of the Second World War.
During the war the theatre was leased to Mecca Cafes
Ltd., for use as a Dance Hall ,but in 1944 negotiations
began to secure the theatre's reopening as an Opera
House. The detailed inventory of furnishings, fixtures
and fittings prepared by a firm of chartered surveyors in
1945, just prior to the theatre's reopening, makes
fascinating reading. In amongst the light-fittings,
chairs, coat-hooks, porcelain wash-stands and earthenware
jugs, are large quantities of photographs, of letter
files and of programmes. There are lists of framed items
including 19th and early 20th century silk programmes,
photographs of Gala performances and "pictures
presented by Mrs. Gabrielle Enthoven", these latter
being mainly of 18th and early 19th century performers.
Not all of the items listed have found their way into the
present day Archives but conversely, items have been
found in the theatre that are not mentioned in the lists.
When the Royal Opera House re-opened as a lyric theatre
1946, it was the first time in the theatre's management
as an opera house that there had been a permanent
resident administration with two resident companies - the
Sadler's Wells Ballet (who reopened the Opera House on 20
February 1946 with The Sleeping Beauty) and The
Covent Garden Opera Company (which gave it's first
performance on 14 January 1947 in Carmen).
In 1945, before the theatre had been reopened, Harold
Rosenthal, Editor of Opera Magazine, wrote to Professor
E.J. Dent, a member of the Covent Garden Committee,
offering himself for the post of Archivist. The matter
was discussed between Professor Dent and David Webster,
the General Administrator but no post was established
until October 1950 when Harold Rosenthal was appointed as
the theatre's archivist.
Rosenthal's proposals for the Archives laid out a
two-fold purpose: firstly to allow for the authoritative
compilation of the theatre's history, which would then be
used as the source for all official information published
about the theatre, with the possibility that the complete
work should be published in book form and sold. And
secondly that the Archives should take concrete form in
the shape of programmes, playbills, letters etc., which
would become a small museum on the lines of La Scala, the
Paris Opéra etc.
As Harold
Rosenthal himself recorded in Two Centuries of Opera
at Covent Garden, David Webster created the post of
Archivist for him and gave him a free hand to build up
the archives of the theatre and to use them for his book.
Notices were sent to Daily Newspapers recording the
establishment of the Archives and asking for donations.
In the first month Harold Rosenthal had over 300 letters
to deal with and received or accepted some 1000 items.
His first aim, of an authoritative history, eventually
found shape in his Two Centuries of Opera at Covent
Garden but, although an official history of the
theatre, it was not published by the theatre. And in
fact, in order to be totally unbiased, Rosenthal
relinquished his post as Archivist shortly before the
book was published in 1956. He continued an association
with the theatre and was a constant source of information
for us until shortly before his death in 1987.
His widow, Phyllis Rosenthal, has made a generous
donation to the Archives of much of Harold's collection.
This includes cuttings from the Illustrated London
News and other papers from 1847 onwards, programmes
and statistical information, all of which make a very
valuable and useful addition to the collection.
From the time that Harold Rosenthal ceased to be employed
as Archivist until the mid-1960's, the archives lay
virtually untouched. Some members of staff at Covent
Garden did work on sorting the collection but there was
no official recognition of the Archives. Then in the
early 1960's, Terence Benton wrote to David Webster.
Terry Benton was an American theatre producer who had
settled in London. He was an Anglophile, a great lover of
opera and ballet and at that time wanted passionately to
be involved in some capacity with the Opera House.
The records are not precisely clear as to when and how
his involvement with the Archives evolved, but he was
certainly working with the collection from 1964/65. He
worked in a voluntary capacity and was chiefly
responsible for organising exhibitions and displays in
the theatre foyers and for answering enquiries. It is
thanks to his boyhood admiration of the recordings of
Rosa Ponselle, that we have two of her costumes, from La
Traviata and Fedora, in the archives, as well
as many autographed photographs. In 1968/69, a friend of
Terry Benton's, who had recently retired from working for
an American oil company based in Japan, and who shared
Terry's enthusiasm for opera and ballet, began helping in
the Archives.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that the Archives
could not continue in this way and in September 1969,
Boris Skidelsky was appointed as the first full-time
archivist. Through the support and generosity of The
Friends of Covent Garden, a room was prepared for the
Archives and the long task of cataloguing the collection
began.
Boris Skidelsky worked mostly on his own at this mammoth
task, although Terry Benton continued to be involved in
display work until 1974/75 and Margaret Nicholson of The
Friends offered assistance when her other duties allowed.
Boris also had voluntary helpers and that was how I first
came to work in the Archives. I was attending the
post-graduate course in Theatre Archives at Manchester
University and during the vacations I worked two to three
days a week in the Archives, continuing to do this after
completing the course. Two months later Boris Skidelsky
decided to retire and I was taken on as his successor. We
worked together for three months and then at the end of
December 1979, Boris left.
For the first eighteen months I worked on my own. Then in
1980 the Gulbenkian Foundation made a grant to the Opera
House, to enable us to employ a full-time assistant for
two years. Unfortunately the grant could not be repeated,
nor was the Opera House able to take up the salary, so
Rosemary Runciman left in 1983, and she is now archivist
for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. In 1988, following a
reorganisation of duties in the Press Offices, the
Archives took on a part-time member of staff to be in
charge of the Press Cutting Archive, and in April 1989 I
was finally able to take on an additional full-time
member of staff.
Now, in addition to the Archivist, there is one full-time
and one part-time member of staff, and some long-term
voluntary helpers.
Three years ago, after years of existing in painfully
cramped conditions, with inadequate storage facilities,
the Archives were able to move to vastly improved space
with specially installed storage equipment. This move was
only made possible through the generosity of The Friends
of Covent Garden, who had continued to administer the
Archives since Boris Skidelsky's appointment in 1969.
The Opera House is undergoing a period of great change.
In 1987 Lord Sainsbury replaced Sir Claus Moser as
Chairman of the Board and at the end of the 1987/88
season Sir John Tooley retired as General Director, to be
succeeded by Jeremy Isaacs. At the same time Ken Davison,
Organising Secretary of The Friends of Covent Garden,
retired after 25 years, and this last retirement
signified the greatest change for the Archives as it no
longer seemed appropriate for The Friends to continue
administering the Archives.
At about the same time Patrick Carnegy was appointed as
Dramaturg to the Royal Opera House, and he is in charge
of all publications emanating from the House. The
Dramaturg also has administrative responsibility for the
Archives. This is the first time that the Archives have
been administered by a Royal Opera House department, (The
Friends, although obviously intimately linked to the
Opera House, is technically a separate charitable
organisation), and it has been beneficial for the
Archives to be seen to have a definite position within
the Royal Opera House organisation.
The images held in the Archives range from newsprints and
magazine illustrations to works on silk, prints,
drawings, original designs, watercolours, photographs,
colour transparencies and slides. The illustrative
material forms approximately one third of the material
conserved in the Archives but is one of the areas most
extensively used internally, by visiting researchers and
for exhibitions. Items are stored according to type, so
photographs are stored together, as are prints, posters,
costume designs, set designs and so forth.
The material in these categories is further divided by
subject heading, be it play, opera, ballet or performer.
Finding aids consist, at the moment, of index cards which
cover performers and productions, cross referenced as
applicable. There are additional lists of types of
materials, so costume and set designs are listed
separately under those headings as well as appearing on
the subject index cards. The Archives have recently
acquired a computer which will be used initially for
performance statistics but it is hoped eventually to use
it for the entire Archive catalogue.
Because the illustrative material is used extensively,
protection and conservation are of paramount importance.
Provision for conservation within the Archive budget is
minimal and consequently emphasis is placed on
preventative care. Departments are encouraged to use
archivally-approved storage systems and this has been
particularly successful in the Press Offices, who supply
the greatest number of photographs to the Archives. All
visitors to the Archives are asked to take adequate care
when handling objects and fines are charged for materials
lost or damaged by users. (This would be damage to copy
photos or duplicate colour transparencies, and the charge
allows for replacements to be ordered).
Uses of the collection are many and varied. Internally we
are used by most Departments but with varying degrees of
intensity. The Departments we work with most frequently
are the Publication Department, who prepare the nightly
programmes; Marketing, looking for visual images to
promote productions; the Press Offices providing
information and illustrations of singers and dancers; The
Friends of Covent Garden for About The House, the
Friend's magazine; the Education Department for leaflets
and information sheets and Merchandising who, since
opening the Royal Opera House Shop, have looked to the
Archives for images or objects capable of being converted
into saleable items. The Production Departments will
occasionally refer to us when a production is being
revived after a long absence.
Outside enquiries come from a variety of sources. The
Archives are open to serious researchers at undergraduate
level and beyond; letters from school-children are
generally passed to the Education Department. Part of the
collection operates as a commercial picture library,
hiring out black/white copy-prints or duplicate
transparencies of non-copyright material. The majority of
post Second World War material is not the copyright of
the Royal Opera House and so these images can be used for
reference only.
Picture researchers come from publishers, television and
film companies, newspapers, record companies, advertisers
and designers; academic researchers come from all over
the world. Exhibition work allows material to reach a
wider public and there are exhibitions of Archives
material in the theatre foyers throughout the season. The
Royal Opera House also lends to exhibitions in Great
Britain, and, to a lesser extent, abroad.
18th Congress
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Last modified:
November 21, 2000
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