WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.580 So imagine finding a masterpiece buried in a 00:00:04.580 --> 00:00:06.940 landfill. Right, which sounds crazy. Yeah, but 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:08.880 not a painting or something physical, like an 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:13.339 entire opera. Oh, wow. Yeah. Welcome to the deep 00:00:13.339 --> 00:00:15.560 dive, by the way. Today we are opening our sources 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:20.359 to look at a highly specific, frankly, wildly 00:00:20.359 --> 00:00:22.879 audacious rescue mission for you all today. It 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:25.140 really is. We're talking about London's Camden 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:29.460 Festival. So from 1954 all the way to 1987, this 00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:33.270 This small but mighty slice of cultural history 00:00:33.270 --> 00:00:37.049 had one defining, seemingly impossible goal. 00:00:37.170 --> 00:00:39.469 They wanted to take long forgotten, completely 00:00:39.469 --> 00:00:42.070 obscure operas. Exactly. Pull them back from 00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:44.409 the brink of total cultural extinction and actually 00:00:44.409 --> 00:00:47.210 put them on a stage for a modern audience. It's 00:00:47.210 --> 00:00:49.210 a brilliant case study in cultural archaeology. 00:00:49.210 --> 00:00:51.509 Right. I mean, we're looking at an annual spring 00:00:51.509 --> 00:00:54.200 event that... Well, it actually started out as 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:56.520 the St. Pancras Festival. In the heart of post 00:00:56.520 --> 00:00:59.240 -war London. Yes. And you're right to emphasize 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:01.759 the audacity of it, because staging an opera 00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:04.340 is absolutely nothing like, you know, republishing 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:06.680 a forgotten poem. Or just hang in a dusty painting 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:09.040 in a gallery somewhere. OK, let's unpack this, 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:11.980 because to me, it's basically like musical Jurassic 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:15.219 Park. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Taking the forgotten 00:01:15.219 --> 00:01:18.879 DNA of old operas and reviving them for a modern 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:20.959 audience to see if they can survive, because 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:23.659 the logistics are just Massive. They're completely 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:25.859 staggering. If you find a forgotten poem, you 00:01:25.859 --> 00:01:27.719 just need a printing press, right? Yeah. But 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:30.040 if you want to revive a forgotten opera, what 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:33.640 does that actually take? It is a massive financial 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.280 and logistical mountain to climb. You don't just 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:39.400 have a single artifact. You have a huge musical 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:41.760 score that honestly likely hasn't been played 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.680 in a century. Wow. And you have to transcribe 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:47.519 individual sheet music for an entire orchestra. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:50.219 Which is what, like 60 or 80 musicians? Easily. 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:52.299 Plus you need a chorus. Right. You need lead 00:01:52.299 --> 00:01:54.980 singers who have to learn incredibly complex 00:01:54.980 --> 00:01:57.579 vocal parts. And they've never heard a recording 00:01:57.579 --> 00:01:59.739 of it. Because no recordings exist. Exactly. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.560 And then you need a director, sets, costumes, 00:02:02.859 --> 00:02:05.680 a venue. So you are dedicating all of those massive, 00:02:06.140 --> 00:02:09.319 expensive resources to a piece of music that 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:13.039 the general public does not know. Man. And theoretically 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:16.900 hasn't cared about for over 100 years. Right. 00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:19.319 Which brings up a really crucial question for 00:02:19.319 --> 00:02:20.860 you listening, because when I first went through 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:23.800 these sources, my immediate reaction was, well, 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:26.659 a bit skeptical. Sure. Aren't things usually 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.180 forgotten for a reason? I mean, if an opera was 00:02:29.180 --> 00:02:32.280 entirely lost to history, why go through the 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:34.500 immense effort to stage it again? Like it's a 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:37.000 terrible reboot of a TV show or something. Exactly. 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:39.719 Is it like trying to reboot a terrible TV show? 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:43.500 If history decided to bury it, shouldn't we trust 00:02:43.500 --> 00:02:46.639 history's judgment? What's fascinating here is 00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:48.719 that it's a completely natural reaction. We all 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:52.919 have this profound, almost subconscious trust 00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:55.060 in the concept of the canon. Right, the accepted 00:02:55.060 --> 00:02:57.099 list of greats. Yeah, the works that get performed 00:02:57.099 --> 00:02:59.979 over and over again. We just tend to assume that 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:02.360 history acts as this perfect filter. keeping 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:04.960 only the absolute best material and just rightfully 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:07.460 discarding the rest. But the very existence of 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:09.939 the Camden Festival and the fact that it actually 00:03:09.939 --> 00:03:13.219 succeeded for over three decades directly challenges 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:16.340 that assumption. How so? Because my default setting 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:19.199 is definitely that in art, you know, the cream 00:03:19.199 --> 00:03:21.939 naturally rises to the top over time. And it 00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:24.580 often does. But sometimes the milk gets spilled 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:27.039 long before the cream ever has a chance to rise. 00:03:27.180 --> 00:03:29.740 Oh, interesting. Yeah, when you look at the historical 00:03:29.740 --> 00:03:33.039 record of these obscure works, you realize that 00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:35.759 a piece of art might fail in its own time for 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:37.979 reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with 00:03:37.979 --> 00:03:40.800 its actual quality. Like what? Give me an example 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.960 of how a masterpiece just falls through the cracks. 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:47.740 Well, OK, imagine opening night in 1830. OK. 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:50.680 The music is brilliant. But perhaps the lead 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:52.879 tenor caught a terrible illness and could barely 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:55.939 whisper his parts. Oh no. The critics panned 00:03:55.939 --> 00:03:58.460 the performance and the opera closes in three 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:01.419 days. Just because of a cold. Right. Or perhaps 00:04:01.419 --> 00:04:03.539 the theater itself literally caught fire the 00:04:03.539 --> 00:04:05.599 week after the premiere. Which happened quite 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:07.319 a lot in the 19th century, right? All the time. 00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:09.780 Or consider the political climate. Maybe the 00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:11.740 subject matter of the opera offended a local 00:04:11.740 --> 00:04:14.479 duke or a censor. So the sheet music was just 00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:17.089 quietly confiscated. and buried in an archive. 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:20.850 Or, frankly, maybe the composer was a musical 00:04:20.850 --> 00:04:23.350 genius but just had terrible marketing skills. 00:04:23.569 --> 00:04:26.329 Just alienated all the theater managers. Exactly. 00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:29.290 Wow. Okay, so it's not always a pure meritocracy. 00:04:29.790 --> 00:04:32.509 Not at all. A brilliant piece of music could 00:04:32.509 --> 00:04:34.850 literally be erased from history just because 00:04:34.850 --> 00:04:38.740 of sheer bad luck or, like, A temperamental duke. 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:41.879 Precisely. And that is the immense value of what 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:44.360 the organizers at St. Pancras and later Camden 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:46.459 were doing. They weren't just blindly pulling 00:04:46.459 --> 00:04:49.670 mediocre art out of the trash bin. No. not just 00:04:49.670 --> 00:04:52.230 for the sake of being quirky. They were critically 00:04:52.230 --> 00:04:54.689 examining the historical record. They were acting 00:04:54.689 --> 00:04:57.189 as an appellate court for dead composers. An 00:04:57.189 --> 00:04:59.709 appellate court for dead composers. I love that 00:04:59.709 --> 00:05:02.310 analogy. Overturning history's unfair verdicts, 00:05:02.310 --> 00:05:04.910 basically. They found works that had been unfairly 00:05:04.910 --> 00:05:06.769 dismissed by circumstance. And they provided 00:05:06.769 --> 00:05:09.490 a dedicated platform and the funding to give 00:05:09.490 --> 00:05:12.310 them a fair, modern hearing. Exactly. And the 00:05:12.310 --> 00:05:14.209 wildest part of the documentation we have is 00:05:14.209 --> 00:05:16.269 that they actually won some of these cases. They 00:05:16.269 --> 00:05:18.519 really did. The sources note that some of these 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:20.980 forgotten works literally made their way back 00:05:20.980 --> 00:05:23.939 into the standard operatic repertory because 00:05:23.939 --> 00:05:26.490 of this festival. which is incredibly difficult 00:05:26.490 --> 00:05:28.829 to achieve. Right, because the repertory is like 00:05:28.829 --> 00:05:31.129 the standard rotation of famous operas. Yeah, 00:05:31.250 --> 00:05:33.970 your Carmen, your Magic Flute, your La Boheme. 00:05:34.209 --> 00:05:37.149 The big hits? Opera companies rely heavily on 00:05:37.149 --> 00:05:39.490 those famous titles because they guarantee ticket 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:41.769 sales. Which pays for that massive orchestra 00:05:41.769 --> 00:05:44.350 and chorus we talked about earlier. Right. Breaking 00:05:44.350 --> 00:05:47.410 a new, or in this case, a deeply forgotten piece 00:05:47.410 --> 00:05:51.100 into that permanent... money -making rotation 00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:54.600 is mathematically and financially nearly impossible. 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:57.259 So for the Camden Festival to achieve that is 00:05:57.259 --> 00:06:00.339 a monumental victory. They essentially altered 00:06:00.339 --> 00:06:03.370 the DNA. of what we consider standard classical 00:06:03.370 --> 00:06:05.910 music today. Simply by refusing to accept that 00:06:05.910 --> 00:06:08.829 the canon was a closed book. Exactly. So we've 00:06:08.829 --> 00:06:11.269 seen how acting as an appellate court for the 00:06:11.269 --> 00:06:15.029 past saved these works. But what's truly counterintuitive 00:06:15.029 --> 00:06:18.529 is how this obsession with looking backward accidentally 00:06:18.529 --> 00:06:21.209 created the perfect incubator for the future. 00:06:21.430 --> 00:06:23.300 Oh, absolutely. Because you wouldn't immediately 00:06:23.300 --> 00:06:26.060 think that digging up 19th century sheet music 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:28.319 is the best way to launch a modern superstar. 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:30.740 No, you wouldn't. But as we move the timeline 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:34.439 forward, we hit a massive pivot point in 1969. 00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:36.639 Here's where it gets really interesting. Yeah, 00:06:36.779 --> 00:06:39.819 1969 is unequivocally a watershed moment in the 00:06:39.819 --> 00:06:41.920 festival's history. Right. First of all, it marks 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:45.079 a significant physical transition. For its first 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:47.579 15 years, the festival had been based out of 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:50.399 the St. Pancras Town Hall. Which was just a municipal 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:53.759 building. Right. But in 1969, they moved their 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:56.240 performances into the Bloomsbury Theater, which 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.319 was known at the time as the Collegiate Theater. 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.139 Okay. It offered a different scale, a different 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:04.360 acoustic environment. But far more importantly, 00:07:04.939 --> 00:07:08.220 1969 was the year a particular young entirely 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:11.699 unknown singer took the stage. Kuri Teganawa. 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:14.339 Exactly. She appeared at the festival singing 00:07:14.339 --> 00:07:17.579 the role of Alina in Gioachino Rossini's opera 00:07:17.579 --> 00:07:20.519 La Dona del Lago. Which translates to The Lady 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:23.879 of the Lake. Yes. Now in 1969, before she became 00:07:23.879 --> 00:07:26.300 a massive fixture at Covent Garden and you know 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:28.540 a household name across the globe. She was a 00:07:28.540 --> 00:07:31.420 complete unknown. Right. Kiri Tiknaro was just 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:33.319 a young artist from New Zealand trying to make 00:07:33.319 --> 00:07:36.720 a name for herself in London. She takes a role 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:39.579 in this Rossini opera that, true to the Camden 00:07:39.579 --> 00:07:42.339 Festival's mandate, was absolutely not a mainstream, 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:44.660 everyday piece of music at the time. No, very 00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:47.060 obscure. And her trajectory from this moment 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:50.759 is staggering. Just one year later, in 1970, 00:07:51.100 --> 00:07:54.120 she joins the highly prestigious Royal Opera 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:57.620 at Covent Garden. It is a remarkably fast ascent. 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:00.449 to the very pinnacle of the opera world. It really 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:03.230 is. But here's what I'm grappling with. If you 00:08:03.230 --> 00:08:05.209 are a young singer trying to get noticed by the 00:08:05.209 --> 00:08:07.810 scouts at Covent Garden, wouldn't you want to 00:08:07.810 --> 00:08:10.610 sing the hits? You'd think so, right? Yeah. Wouldn't 00:08:10.610 --> 00:08:12.389 you want to invite the critics to see your take 00:08:12.389 --> 00:08:15.410 on a famous Mozart or Puccini roll to prove you 00:08:15.410 --> 00:08:17.990 can run with the big dogs? Sure. Why does tackling 00:08:17.990 --> 00:08:20.129 an obscure forgotten piece of music serve as 00:08:20.129 --> 00:08:22.430 a better launch pad? Does this show us that the 00:08:22.430 --> 00:08:24.689 best place to prove yourself is by tackling obscure 00:08:24.689 --> 00:08:28.579 material? Like a gritty indie film festival launching 00:08:28.579 --> 00:08:31.040 an unknown actor into a Hollywood blockbuster. 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:34.039 If we connect this to the bigger picture, to 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:36.419 the mechanics of how artistic careers are actually 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:40.580 forged, that indie film festival analogy is incredibly 00:08:40.580 --> 00:08:44.000 accurate. Okay, how so? Think about the intense 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:48.039 suffocating pressure of singing a globally famous 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:51.470 role when you are an unknown. Right. If a young 00:08:51.470 --> 00:08:54.950 soprano tackles the lead in a famous Mozart opera, 00:08:55.470 --> 00:08:57.710 the audience and the critics already have 50 00:08:57.710 --> 00:09:00.389 different legendary recordings echoing in their 00:09:00.389 --> 00:09:02.769 heads. Oh, wow. They know exactly how they think 00:09:02.769 --> 00:09:05.529 every single phrase should breathe. Ah, so the 00:09:05.529 --> 00:09:07.690 expectations are completely rigid. Exactly. The 00:09:07.690 --> 00:09:09.110 critics aren't actually listening to you. They 00:09:09.110 --> 00:09:11.250 are constantly comparing you to the ghosts of 00:09:11.250 --> 00:09:13.990 legendary singers from the past. Yes. You are 00:09:13.990 --> 00:09:16.570 fighting against decades of entrenched tradition. 00:09:16.929 --> 00:09:18.909 You're walking into a trap where you can only 00:09:18.909 --> 00:09:22.370 ever be the next somebody else, or worse, a disappointment. 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:25.350 That sounds terrifying. It is. But a festival 00:09:25.350 --> 00:09:28.350 dedicated to obscure works completely removes 00:09:28.350 --> 00:09:30.769 that barrier. Because nobody knows the songs. 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:35.259 Right. It acts as a perfect low -risk high -reward 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:38.919 incubator for young talent. When Kari Tekenawa 00:09:38.919 --> 00:09:40.879 stepped onto the stage at the Collegiate Theater 00:09:40.879 --> 00:09:44.120 to sing Rossini's La Dona del Lago, there was 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:46.500 no definitive modern recording for the critics 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:49.500 to compare her against. The audience didn't have 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:52.559 rigid preconceptions of how the ornamentation 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:54.639 should sound or how the character should move. 00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:57.000 They were discovering the music right alongside 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.399 her. Yes. It's the ultimate blank canvas. She 00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:03.200 got to define the role rather than letting the 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:06.139 weight of the role define her. In Rossini's music, 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:09.379 particularly this piece, requires immense vocal 00:10:09.379 --> 00:10:12.299 agility and raw power. Okay. By giving her a 00:10:12.299 --> 00:10:14.879 forgotten masterpiece to sing, the Camden Festival 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:17.259 allowed her to showcase her sheer technical brilliance 00:10:17.259 --> 00:10:20.480 and emotional range entirely on her own merits. 00:10:20.700 --> 00:10:22.320 She caught the attention of the Scouts because 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:24.899 she proved she could carry an entire complex 00:10:24.899 --> 00:10:26.820 production. Without leaning on the crutch of 00:10:26.820 --> 00:10:28.779 audience nostalgia. It really makes you realize 00:10:28.779 --> 00:10:32.480 how vital these niche hyper -specialized festivals 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.639 are to the broader cultural ecosystem. Oh, they're 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:38.480 essential. You need these smaller experimental 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:41.500 spaces. They act as the research and development 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:43.759 departments for mainstream culture. They are 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:45.759 the fertile soil where the seeds of the next 00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:49.080 generation can safely germinate. And for decades, 00:10:49.539 --> 00:10:52.220 the Camden Festival played that role. to perfection. 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:55.259 It balanced the archaeology of resurrecting the 00:10:55.259 --> 00:10:58.539 past with the incubation of future talent. Exactly. 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.039 But as we see in the timeline we have in front 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:05.679 of us, a 33 -year run is incredible, but it eventually 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.740 hits a wall. It does. Let's look at the final 00:11:08.740 --> 00:11:11.019 act of the Camden Festival, because the sources 00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:14.259 detail a really fascinating shift in how cultural 00:11:14.259 --> 00:11:17.000 institutions manage to survive when the world 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.379 around them changes. Right, the transition. Let's 00:11:19.379 --> 00:11:21.559 talk about the shift to the blooms. Festival. 00:11:21.799 --> 00:11:24.200 Based on the historical record, the Camden Festival, 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:26.600 as it was originally known officially, came to 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:29.879 an end in 1987. Okay. But it didn't just collapse 00:11:29.879 --> 00:11:32.259 and vanish into the ether. It was immediately 00:11:32.259 --> 00:11:35.559 superseded the very next year, in 1988, by what 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:37.519 is now called the Bloomsbury Festival. Right, 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:39.799 they passed the baton. But the Bloomsbury Festival 00:11:39.799 --> 00:11:42.440 is a very fundamentally different beast. Very 00:11:42.440 --> 00:11:44.970 different. The sources point out a stark contrast 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:47.509 between the original hyper -focused mission of 00:11:47.509 --> 00:11:50.529 the Camden days and the modern reality of the 00:11:50.529 --> 00:11:52.590 new festival. For example, if you look at the 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:55.009 2013 program. Yeah, the sources highlight that 00:11:55.009 --> 00:11:57.269 program specifically. By then, the Bloomsbury 00:11:57.269 --> 00:12:00.889 Festival consisted of a very broad range of cultural 00:12:00.889 --> 00:12:03.990 events. Right. It had morphed into a wide ranging 00:12:03.990 --> 00:12:07.929 general celebration of arts and culture and opera. 00:12:08.029 --> 00:12:11.110 The very thing that defined them for over 30 00:12:11.110 --> 00:12:14.480 years. Exactly. By 2013, opera appeared as only 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:16.940 a very small part of the programming. It went 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:19.539 from being the absolute core identity of the 00:12:19.539 --> 00:12:22.240 event to becoming just a minor footnote in a 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.059 much larger, highly diverse catalog of activities. 00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:27.659 So what does this all mean for niche interests? 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.559 When I look at that 2013 program and see opera 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:32.460 reduced to a footnote, part of me feels like 00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:35.080 that's a tragic loss. I can see that. For anyone 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:37.279 listening right now who has a very specific, 00:12:37.620 --> 00:12:40.299 highly specialized passion, whether it's obscure 00:12:40.299 --> 00:12:43.519 1950s sci -fi novels or vintage synthesizers 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:45.480 or forgotten Italian operas. Right. It feels 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:48.740 like a defeat. Yeah. Did the festival just run 00:12:48.740 --> 00:12:51.139 out of money? Did it lose its original soul? 00:12:51.370 --> 00:12:54.330 Or is this dilution just the necessary pragmatic 00:12:54.330 --> 00:12:57.669 cost of survival? This raises an important question 00:12:57.669 --> 00:13:00.370 and is a complex mix of economics and changing 00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:03.870 civic duties. It is a tension that every single 00:13:03.870 --> 00:13:07.149 arts organization inevitably faces if it manages 00:13:07.149 --> 00:13:10.190 to survive long enough. It's the friction between 00:13:10.190 --> 00:13:12.610 preserving a hyper -specific artistic mission 00:13:12.610 --> 00:13:15.769 and serving the constantly shifting diverse cultural 00:13:15.769 --> 00:13:19.340 tastes of a living city. Because London in the 00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:22.100 1980s and beyond is fundamentally different from 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:24.679 the post -war London of 1954 when this all started. 00:13:24.700 --> 00:13:27.279 Completely different. Demographics shift, community 00:13:27.279 --> 00:13:29.840 interests evolve, and the mechanics of funding 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:32.360 the arts shifted dramatically as well. The cost 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:36.059 of staging full -scale, obscure operas rose astronomically 00:13:36.059 --> 00:13:38.600 by the late 1980s. Oh, I'm sure. A niche audience 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:41.000 of hardcore opera aficionados while dedicated 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.440 is often not enough to sustain a multi -week 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:45.820 festival financially. Especially when municipal 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:48.299 arts funding is required to serve a broader taxpayer 00:13:48.299 --> 00:13:50.139 base. Precisely. So they were forced to look 00:13:50.139 --> 00:13:52.379 at the math and realize the old model was breaking. 00:13:52.700 --> 00:13:55.759 Wow. If we look at this impartially, we shouldn't 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:59.159 view the end of the Camden Festival in 1987 as 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:02.429 a failure or a tragedy. 33 years is a monumental 00:14:02.429 --> 00:14:05.070 achievement. For any highly specialized arts 00:14:05.070 --> 00:14:08.350 organization, most don't last five. Right. But 00:14:08.350 --> 00:14:10.769 when a niche becomes too narrow to sustain itself, 00:14:11.570 --> 00:14:13.649 or when the physical and demographic reality 00:14:13.649 --> 00:14:16.669 of a neighborhood shifts, a festival has a very 00:14:16.669 --> 00:14:20.860 stark choice. Adapt or die. Exactly. It can stubbornly 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:22.919 refuse to change, burn through its remaining 00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:25.460 cash, and suffer that total cultural extinction 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:28.759 we want to avoid. Or it can adapt, broaden its 00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:32.019 scope, and survive in a newly evolved form. It's 00:14:32.019 --> 00:14:34.600 the classic adapt or die scenario, but played 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.299 out on a cultural stage. Yes. By superseding 00:14:37.299 --> 00:14:39.399 the Camden Festival, the Bloomsbury Festival 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:41.379 ensured that the physical infrastructure actually 00:14:41.379 --> 00:14:44.100 survived. The organizational knowledge, the tradition 00:14:44.100 --> 00:14:46.460 of a spring cultural gathering in that specific 00:14:46.460 --> 00:14:48.960 part of London. They retained a tiny thread of 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:51.600 opera to honor their historical roots, but they 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:53.519 opened their doors to a broader array of art 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:56.399 forms. Like spoken word, dance, visual arts. 00:14:56.820 --> 00:14:59.620 Things that reflected the community as it existed 00:14:59.620 --> 00:15:03.519 in 1988. and later in 2013. It really reframes 00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:06.419 the whole idea of an institution selling out 00:15:06.419 --> 00:15:09.860 or diluting its brand. It does. We usually use 00:15:09.860 --> 00:15:12.759 those terms as insults, but sometimes stepping 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:15.960 aside, absorbing the infrastructure, and broadening 00:15:15.960 --> 00:15:19.019 the software to include diverse arts is the most 00:15:19.019 --> 00:15:21.799 responsible thing a cultural event can do. Once 00:15:21.799 --> 00:15:24.259 its original, highly specific mission has been 00:15:24.259 --> 00:15:26.720 accomplished. Exactly. The Camden Festival did 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:29.940 its job brilliantly. It resurrected dead works 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:32.659 that are now played globally. It launched generational 00:15:32.659 --> 00:15:36.100 superstars like Kiri Tikanoa. And then gracefully, 00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:39.840 it allowed its energy to flow. into new contemporary 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:42.899 channels rather than slowly evaporating as its 00:15:42.899 --> 00:15:45.059 original audience aged out. It built the house 00:15:45.059 --> 00:15:47.539 and then handed over the keys to a new generation 00:15:47.539 --> 00:15:50.179 with different tastes. Beautifully put. This 00:15:50.179 --> 00:15:52.620 has been such an enlightening journey. We started 00:15:52.620 --> 00:15:55.039 by looking at a quirky, hyper -focused spring 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.039 festival in London that seemed like it had an 00:15:57.039 --> 00:15:59.460 impossibly narrow mandate. Dusting off operas 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:01.990 that the world had entirely forgotten. But through 00:16:01.990 --> 00:16:05.429 that incredibly narrow lens, they managed to 00:16:05.429 --> 00:16:09.690 do massive, industry -defying things. They proved 00:16:09.690 --> 00:16:12.230 the historical canon isn't perfectly meritocratic. 00:16:12.470 --> 00:16:15.470 And they acted as an appellate court to literally 00:16:15.470 --> 00:16:18.649 resurrect dead music. They proved that the best 00:16:18.649 --> 00:16:22.129 way to launch a modern titan like Kiri Te Kanoa 00:16:22.129 --> 00:16:24.610 was to give her the blank canvas of a forgotten 00:16:24.610 --> 00:16:27.480 Rossini score. And eventually they provided a 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:30.480 master class in how an organization gracefully 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.179 transforms. Stepping aside for the Bloomsbury 00:16:33.179 --> 00:16:36.100 Festival to offer a broader cultural experience 00:16:36.100 --> 00:16:39.120 for a changing city. It is a vital reminder that 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:41.539 the artistic landscape we take for granted today 00:16:41.539 --> 00:16:44.470 is not an accident. Right. The classic repertoire 00:16:44.470 --> 00:16:46.590 you might listen to, the famous names you recognize, 00:16:47.009 --> 00:16:49.389 they often only exist because someone, somewhere 00:16:49.389 --> 00:16:52.269 in the past, took a massive financial and artistic 00:16:52.269 --> 00:16:54.889 risk. Someone decided to dig into the archives, 00:16:55.210 --> 00:16:57.309 hire the orchestra, and put something forgotten 00:16:57.309 --> 00:17:00.330 onto a stage. Simply because they believed it 00:17:00.330 --> 00:17:02.909 deserved a second chance at life. It really makes 00:17:02.909 --> 00:17:05.170 you look at the media we consume today differently, 00:17:05.230 --> 00:17:07.349 and that is exactly what we want to leave you 00:17:07.349 --> 00:17:09.740 with today. We've talked about how this physical 00:17:09.740 --> 00:17:12.000 festival dedicated to bringing back forgotten 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.200 art eventually had to broaden its scope to survive 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:18.400 into the modern age. But history is always repeating 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:20.900 itself. And the mechanisms of forgetting are 00:17:20.900 --> 00:17:23.880 faster now than ever. Exactly. So think about 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:27.059 the culture of today. What discarded cultural 00:17:27.059 --> 00:17:30.700 ideas, what lost pieces of early internet media, 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:33.960 or what brilliant failed indie projects right 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:36.359 now are currently waiting for their own passionate 00:17:36.359 --> 00:17:38.259 revival? Well, that's a great point. What is 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:41.420 out there quietly gathering digital dust on a 00:17:41.420 --> 00:17:44.599 dead hard drive or an archived forum, waiting 00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:47.019 for a modern equivalent of the Camden Festival 00:17:47.019 --> 00:17:49.680 to pull it out of obscurity? Before it is permanently 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:51.660 swallowed up by the broader mainstream culture. 00:17:51.829 --> 00:17:54.309 A fascinating question. The archives are never 00:17:54.309 --> 00:17:56.670 truly empty, you know, they're only waiting for 00:17:56.670 --> 00:17:59.289 the next curious archaeologist to realize what 00:17:59.289 --> 00:18:02.049 got left behind. Absolutely. Keep asking questions, 00:18:02.210 --> 00:18:03.950 keep looking for the forgotten things and keep 00:18:03.950 --> 00:18:06.170 exploring. Thank you so much for joining us on 00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:07.730 this deep dive. We'll see you next time.