Raymond Gubbay

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the music impresario Raymond Gubbay. For the last forty years he's organized opera, ballet, and classical music concerts, and has worked with everyone from Pavarotti to Ray Charles, proclaiming that audiences want tunes they can hum, and that's what I give them.

Presenter0:45

While his own musical talents are limited he failed his Grade One piano he's been described as a maestro to Middle England but his marketing pizzazz and straight talking have often seen him at loggerheads with the musical establishment.

Presenter0:58

He started his own business with fifty quid from his dad and fifty quid from the bank, and fumes at the subsidies doled out by the Arts Council.

Presenter1:06

I don't think the people at Covent Garden have the first clue as to what it's like to sink your own money into a project and then nervously study the ticket sales to see if you're going to survive, he says. Well, you have more than survived, Raymond Gumby, without any of that Arts Council money. What's your formula?

Raymond Gubbay1:21

Um I've always believed in putting on what people want to hear, what they want to go and see, and uh things that I kind of like, things that I know myself. So that's been the way I've followed things from the word go, and it's always seemed to work.

Presenter1:34

What is it?

Raymond Gubbay1:34

That you think

Presenter1:35

People want to come and see.

Raymond Gubbay1:37

Basically people want to go out to be entertained to uh in my case with my sort of events to to hear music that they know and love and that's what I hope I give them.

Presenter1:45

It's very significant that in what you do not only are you good at balancing the books and making concerts a huge success, you have to deal with the talent.

Speaker 41:54

Yeah.

Presenter1:54

And the talent in your business can often be notoriously tricky. You must be skilled at that, at handling these huge, overblown

Raymond Gubbay2:01

Well, I've always found with artists, if you treat them with respect, generally speaking, you get the best out of them. And I don't think we should forget that we're asking people to go out and perform before huge audiences. It's very nerve-wracking for them. So you've got to have some consideration for what's going on inside their minds and let them get on with it. So I think that's always been the way I've approached this.

Presenter2:22

How do you do that? How do you tease the talent out and make make them want to get on stage in front of all the people?

Raymond Gubbay2:25

But Haddie

Raymond Gubbay2:27

Thank you. You show enthusiasm. You're there f you're there for them when you need to be there for them. I keep a a reasonably high profile at my events so that people know I'm interested and care, and I think that goes a long way.

Presenter2:37

I mean, what's the trickiest situation you've ever had to deal with when it comes to talent?

Raymond Gubbay2:41

Um oh I think uh we had a uh a conductor once who said he was ill and couldn't go on. This was just literally before the performance and was lying down in the dressing room at the Barbican and the leader of the orchestra uh with uh great alacrity came into the room and said, Well, um that's okay. I'll start the concert off for you, Maestro, and uh when you're ready come and join us and he jumped up and said, No, I'm feeling better now. I I'll be able to go on It's it's all a matter of of dealing with the situation when it comes up. Nothing should ever phase you.

Presenter3:10

What's your first record?

Raymond Gubbay3:11

Well, my first record is the The Death of Lieutenant from Tirundotte. I've chosen Tirundotte because it was the opera which I did at Wembley with the Royal Opera House about fifteen years ago now, and it was the first time they'd ever done an arena opera. And The Death of Lieutenant is the point where Puccini finished the opera. He couldn't write the happy ending, even though he finished it four years or so before he died. It's a very poignant moment, and I'd like to hear it with Montserrat Caballer.

Speaker 44:02

Yeah.

Presenter4:40

Montserrat Cavalier, and you who are girdled with ice the moment when Lieu kills herself in Puccini's Tourandotte.

Presenter4:46

Fifty quid from your dad, fifty quid from the bank. Was it really as simple as that, all those years ago?

Raymond Gubbay4:50

Yes, it was because in those days it was the time when Jenny Lee had encouraged the local authorities to put money into the arts and to build little halls and theatres which were going up around the countryside. And so I was going round with three or four singers and a pianist offering Gilbert and Salvador evenings or Vienny's evenings. At one time I was doing about one hundred and fifty a year all over the country. So that really is how it started.

Presenter5:13

When you left school, you had originally worked for your dad, who was a successful chartered accountant. How long did that last?

Raymond Gubbay5:15

Yeah, it's

Raymond Gubbay5:18

Oh, about eight months after I was at that point six months behind with the correspondence course, so I knew I hated it, so I didn't I couldn't carry on with that.

Presenter5:26

It's interesting that you've worked for yourself ever since. What is it? You like running the show? You like being in charge?

Raymond Gubbay5:31

Well, I've just always done it, and so I suppose it's second nature to me, and it it's not so much that I'm in charge, it's just the the freedom to do what I want to do. That that I think counts for a lot.

Presenter5:43

Other people would call that being in charge.

Raymond Gubbay5:44

Oh well. So be it.

Presenter5:46

W were you a headstrong little boy?

Raymond Gubbay5:49

I suppose I was a bit. But I was brought up in Golders Green. I was born just after the war, and it was a very interesting place to be. It was very cosmopolitan because there were loads of guttural accents. There were loads of refugees from pre-war Europe. And I remember going as a nipper to the Festival of Britain and being amazed by all the colour and the light and gaiety of everything there. It was in in very stark contrast to the kind of everyday life that was going on around.

Presenter6:18

So you had an eye for spectacle even then. You liked uh the bright colours, the bright lights, things painted boldly.

Raymond Gubbay6:23

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter6:26

When was your first taste of live performance, then?

Raymond Gubbay6:28

Well, um we lived, as I say, in Golders Green, and there was the Golders Green Hippodrome. My grandmother used to go up to the gods for half a crown in old money on wooden benches. And then when I was a little older, there was the Doily Carte, which came every year with the Gilbert and Sullivan, which I loved. There was ballet, there were plays every week. It used to be the final tour date before going into London. I saw a huge number of stars and ballet. I remember seeing Fontaine and Nourieff, saw Marlina Dietrich, Sybil Thorndike, all kinds of actors and actresses and famous people.

Presenter7:02

As a little boy being taken along by your grandmother to these performances, I mean a lot of little boys would have just sort of shifted on the bench and tugged at their grandma's coat and wondered.

Presenter7:10

When the heck they could get out. I mean, were you caught up in the drama of the performance?

Raymond Gubbay7:13

I think I was. I loved going to the theater. I loved the the the moment when the curtain goes up and and you are taken into whatever different world it happens to be, a world of make believe or whatever, to be entertained and that that that really thrilled me and I enjoyed it hugely.

Presenter7:28

And let's remind ourselves though. I mean, this was uh you were born in 1946, so this was the late 40s, beginning of the

Raymond Gubbay7:33

Fifty seconds.

Presenter7:33

This was the birth of rock and roll. This was when we had Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Did none of that make its mark on you?

Raymond Gubbay7:39

Um not re not not a huge influence. No, no. I was aware of what was going on, but it it it didn't seem to uh to draw me in.

Presenter7:47

We are a bit of a square.

Raymond Gubbay7:48

I probably was, yes, I probably still am.

Presenter7:51

What's your next record?

Raymond Gubbay7:52

Well it's the Emperor Concerto, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. The Emperor Concerto was the first concerto that I programmed at the Barbican when that opened in 1982. But my mother being a pianist it was something that I remember from my youth and I've asked for the recording with Beno Mozevich because he was somebody my mother hugely admired.

Presenter9:15

Part of the last movement of Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto played by Benno Maseewich with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by George Sell. You left school just it was three days before your sixteenth birthday.

Speaker 49:27

Uh

Raymond Gubbay9:27

Yeah.

Presenter9:28

Sounds like you couldn't wait to get out. Why were you so keen to leave school?

Raymond Gubbay9:31

Well, that was my dad who wanted me to uh to be articled, and in those days you could be articled at sixteen with just five O levels, so I'm not sure it was a very good idea to leave at that point, but uh I did and that was it.

Presenter9:41

Given the organised, studious, dependable nature of your dad's profession, I imagine he was that sort of man. Um did he worry about his boy, Raymond, when you didn't s settle down?

Raymond Gubbay9:51

Oh, I think yes, very much, because my brother had become a medical student, so that was, you know, very respectable. But I was a bit of a bohemian, you know, not quite knowing what I wanted to do.

Presenter10:01

Did you know, somewhere in your own mind's eye, that it was music that really was your future path and what you wanted to do?

Raymond Gubbay10:07

No, I didn't really. I didn't know at all until um m my dad had uh was determined to put on Mozart's Il Seraglio at uh the and he had an opportunity to do it at the St Pancras Town Hall, and he got me involved in that, and uh I found I enjoyed it very much, and that was really what set me going.

Presenter10:26

When you say he was going to put it on, there's a family tradition then of setting up.

Raymond Gubbay10:29

Not at all, no. I mean, he upset my mother terribly because I think in the end he lost £200, or maybe it was more than that, but whatever it was, she said, you're never again going to do this. But it just was the spark that set me going, and that was how I thought I rather liked the life and enjoyed it. And thereafter, he saw how keen I was, and he made a chance remark to Arnold Wesker of all people. And he happened to mention to Arnold Wesker that his son was looking for a job in the theatre. And Arnold Wesker happened to mention the same to Victor Hochhauser. And so I found I got an interview with Viktor Hochhauser out of the blue. How did it go? Well, I went for the interview. There were three questions. Where did you go to school? Are you a Jewish boy? Can you start on Monday? And that was it. And I lasted 10 months, 28 days, and 12 hours, which was hugely encouraging and entertaining for me. I had a great time. I learnt an enormous amount. It was a very fast-learn university.

Presenter11:08

Python.

Raymond Gubbay11:31

Yeah.

Presenter11:31

But, Raymond, given that you remember that it was ten months, twenty eight days, and twelve hours, it would be reasonable to assume from that that it was uh longer than most people lasted.

Raymond Gubbay11:40

Uh I think there was a history of people passing through there fairly rapidly, but uh some perhaps longer, some shorter.

Presenter11:46

I get the feeling you're being very polite. You staged, of course, a a triumphant Madame Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall in 1998, but. But at age sixteen, you had your first encounter with Madame Butterfly. Tell us about that.

Raymond Gubbay11:58

Um I'd got a job at the Hintlesham Festival in Suffolk making the scenery and uh I remember that uh there was a very eccentric man called Tony Stokes who who owned Hintlesham Hall and uh h his son had a a record of um of Madam Butterfly of the love duet and I remember uh listening to it and I think I'd probably heard it for it was about the first time I'd ever heard it and it made a a big impact on me.

Presenter12:22

And as your third record, why have you chosen this particular recording?

Raymond Gubbay12:25

Because it's Victoria de L De Los Angeles, who I had the great pleasure of working with on many occasions in the nineteen seventies, singing with Jussie Björling, whose voice to me is just the great tenor voice. And he and Los Angeles together singing the love duet is is just sublime.

Speaker 412:57

I see.

Speaker 413:12

And save me all you

Speaker 413:28

Oh, please, Lord.

Speaker 413:33

Yeah.

Presenter13:41

Turia de Los Angeles and UC Bjerling singing part of the love duet at the end of the first act of Puccini's Madam Butterfly. So, Raymond Gabby, the title Impresario, is somewhat theatrical and it's somewhat imprecise. You know, is it a promoter, a producer, a financial backer? How would you characterize it?

Raymond Gubbay13:57

Well, I've never called myself an impresario. I've always called myself a concert promoter, so um I always found Impresario a bit pretentious.

Presenter14:05

So a concert promoter does what, in essence, finds the talent, puts up the money, finds the venue.

Raymond Gubbay14:08

Yes, exactly so. Puts the whole thing together. It's finding the project, costing it out, making sure it works financially, finding the talent to make it work and booking the venue and advertising and selling the tickets and hoping that at the end of the day more comes in at the box office than you're paying out.

Presenter14:26

At the age of nineteen, twenty, where did you get the chutzpah to imagine that you could do that?

Raymond Gubbay14:30

Imagine that you could do that.

Raymond Gubbay14:32

Well, in those early days it was much simpler because, as I I said, we had three or four singers and a pianist, and most of the venues gave me a fee, very small fees. I mean, there were s fees like

Raymond Gubbay14:42

eighty guineas, eighty four pounds that is, or ninety pounds, I remember these very well, and I had to pay the singers and the pianist and the transport and the hotels and make some money. I mean I never I never lost money from day one, but reli relatively quickly I was able to earn um a modest living. Now it's great, I loved it. I mean I thought originally I'd have worked for about six months, but uh here I am forty years later doing much the same thing.

Presenter15:04

So out of say those eighty guineas, how many guineas would the young Raymond Gubby be getting to put in his back pocket?

Raymond Gubbay15:09

Oh, if I was lucky, about twelve pounds or something like that, fifteen pounds on a very good night.

Presenter15:15

Were you always convinced that an appreciation of classical music wasn't something reserved for a sort of toffy nosed metropolitan elite? Did you always think that the people would like it if if somebody took it to them?

Raymond Gubbay15:26

Well, I think absolutely. We do ourselves a disservice if we try to make classical music or opera elitist. I think we we've got to go out and break down the barriers. We get audiences at the Albert Hall for the operas, for example, of sixty five, seventy thousand people, which I hazard a guess is more than the regular opera opera going concert in London. We get beyond that. We get to people who don't normally go to the opera, who want to come out because they they know it's going to be a good night and they know some of the music and they they love the Albert Hall and they like the spectacle, so that's how they they're drawn in.

Presenter16:03

Does it bother you if the people coming to a concert know the music through The Bailey's ad or The British Airways ad?

Raymond Gubbay16:10

Not at all. I mean, I think that's what's helped to make

Raymond Gubbay16:14

classical music so much more accessible. It is the fact that it's used in in jingles and theme music or whatever, and people say, Oh, that's what that piece is, is it? I never knew that. That happens time and time again.

Presenter16:26

The criticism, of course, is that people are missing the complexities of it, that to properly appreciate it and to properly understand it, you've got to know the piece, and you've got to know the history of the piece, and the composer, and the people who are playing it. And if you just know it from the BA ad, well, you don't know any of that.

Raymond Gubbay16:40

Well, you know what you like, you like what you hear. But are you going to say that somebody who goes to a gallery and sees paintings can't appreciate them for what they are? They have to know all the background? No, I don't think so. Um I think you go to to to be stimulated to to enjoy, to listen to what you like, and that's really important.

Presenter16:58

What's your fourth record?

Raymond Gubbay16:59

Well, it's it's Maria Callas because I once had the the pleasure of hearing her at Covent Garden when she was actually then doing Tosca. But this is now singing Simpre Libra from La Treviata. I was taken at a very tender age to see it at the old Saddler's Worlds Theatre with the Saddler what was then the Saddler's Worlds Opera Company. And it stuck in my mind because I remembered that Violetta took such a long time so it seemed to die at the end. And I thought opera must be rather boring, but I I've since learnt better.

Presenter18:26

Maria Callas singing Simpre Libre Forever Free with Alfred Kreis from Verde's La Traviata. The maestro of Middle England, they call you, Raymond Gubby. Um does that rankle?

Raymond Gubbay18:35

Come in and copy.

Raymond Gubbay18:38

Not at all. No, they can call me what they like. I've been called so many things over the years. Doesn't worry me at all.

Presenter18:42

I said in the introduction that it's tunes they can hum that are at the heart of the concert you stage. Who's your typical customer?

Raymond Gubbay18:51

Don't think there is a typical customer. I mean if you look at the opera audience at the Albert Hall, there's young and old and and families and and and and children and so on. So it's it's very much a mixture.

Presenter19:02

Do you think are they people who would be at home at the Royal Opera House, or are they more likely to go to see Mamma Mia in the West End?

Raymond Gubbay19:09

I think you'll find people that will do both. And

Raymond Gubbay19:14

It's always when people ask me about the operas, it's quite difficult because when I I mean they do wonderful productions then you get the world's best singers, but when you're asked to pay £175 for a ticket and it's subsidised, that that is what does sometimes rankle. And it's not that I'm against subsidy, far from it, I've always been hugely supportive of subsidy, but I think subsidy needs to be used in the right way and I'm not sure that putting it towards tickets that are already so hugely expensive is right. After all, if people can pay £175, why don't you ask them to pay two hundred and twenty or whatever the real price is without the subsidy and use that money for something more worthwhile?

Presenter19:52

But don't you think that you uh benefit from if if we can call it the trickle-down effect from you know what the Opera House puts on that is this high culture and tends to be bracketed as elitist, when people come to one of your concerts, they are in a sense buying into the notion that what they're doing has a high-minded ethos behind it.

Raymond Gubbay20:13

I think we all benefit from each other in this business. Bringing big audiences into the Albert Hall benefits the music business generally because some of those people will trickle the other way if you like.

Presenter20:25

You're not just the maestro of Middle England, you are a maestro of marketing. You know, you have the Valentine's concerts where you give the ladies a rose when they come in, the eighteen twelve overture with it's characterized on on on the flyers as these thundering muskets, cannons and indoor fireworks. That's all part of the deal with you.

Raymond Gubbay20:34

Eighteen.

Raymond Gubbay20:35

Yeah.

Raymond Gubbay20:38

Yeah.

Raymond Gubbay20:40

Cannons and

Raymond Gubbay20:42

That's all.

Raymond Gubbay20:43

Yes, I mean you you've got something to sell, you've got to go out and sell it. There's no point in being tame about it, you've got to put the message across, and uh it's very important to do that, and that's what I think uh my colleagues and I do.

Presenter20:54

Some people get their knickers in a terrible knot about it, though. They think that what you do is tacky.

Raymond Gubbay20:58

Well, I'm glad they do because I think if people don't talk about you, you're not succeeding. So jolly good. I can only judge by what happens at the box office. People tell us very clearly with their feet if they want to come or not. And that's the only criteria that I've got to get it right. There is a vast audience for this, and that's what I hope that I satisfy.

Presenter21:21

What's your fifth record?

Raymond Gubbay21:22

My fifth record is the the finale from The Nutcracker. Ballet something I've been involved with over a number of years, but The Nutcracker in particular is the ballet that I remember that I took my children to when they were very small, like I suppose so many people do. It reminds me of cold winter afternoons in the fest going into the festival hall and this magic world that opens up with the ballet and children, little children being enchanted and having a great time.

Presenter22:49

The final waltz from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and memories there of taking your children to the ballet on those chilly winter pre Christmas afternoons. Many people were very surprised when in two thousand you applied for the job of director of the Royal Opera House. Why did you do that?

Raymond Gubbay23:07

Um well, I had Aida coming on uh in the following uh February and it was a good opportunity to um stir things up and get a bit of publicity. Was that all? Basically, yes, because uh I applied corporately for my company to take over. Uh so you applied

Presenter23:22

So you applied as Raymond Gavin Committee.

Raymond Gubbay23:24

Yes, yes. I knew they wouldn't wear that. But surprisingly, I got a lot of heavyweight support and articles in the press and so on. And in fact, the twelve-point plan that I'd come up with made a lot of sense. I mean, I still would be happy to stick by it. What was in it? Well, you're asking me to dig back in my memory, but I know there were ways of saving money by keeping the opera and the ballet separate, not changing the opera every night, but double casting it so that you could run Boheme for a week and then change it with a double cast to another opera. All the things that seemed to make good financial sense because the way the opera companies run with this Staggione system of changing the repertoire each night is the most inefficient from a cost point of view and makes no sense at all.

Presenter24:12

Uh

Raymond Gubbay24:12

Uh

Presenter24:12

So you think that you could have made a proper fist of running that business in a way that no longer required them to get all this millions of pounds in subsidy, do you?

Raymond Gubbay24:21

Well, it was a different way of doing it. It was a different approach and uh it was radical and uh

Raymond Gubbay24:29

would have made a lot of changes. I happen to think that that what's happened since with Tony Hall at the Opera House is very good. I think he runs it extremely well within the confines of the system that's there. And they've changed their image and they're no longer the sick man of Bow Street. So I think that's very positive.

Presenter24:46

Would it be your contention, then, that all this Arts Council money is just wasted?

Raymond Gubbay24:50

No, not at all. No, no, no, no. And as I said earlier, I'm a great supporter of subsidy. It's just a question of channeling it in the right way. There are vast areas of the country which don't get orchestral touring, for example, don't see ballet companies. The whole area of bringing children to performances is one that's very largely ignored. All these are things which I think are much more important than putting money into Covent Garden. But that's just my hobby horse.

Presenter25:18

What's your next record?

Raymond Gubbay25:19

My next record is Edith Piaff singing La Vian Rose. I could have chosen any number of Edith Piaff songs. It reminds me so much of Paris, which I love, and sitting on the boulevard with La Figaro and a coffee and watching the world go by.

Speaker 325:35

Des you qui pour des mien, rir qui se pair saboutre, voi non le pautres savà tour.

Speaker 325:44

Dolomoquel Capalitia.

Presenter26:04

Edith P.F.'s singing La Vien Ro was recorded in nineteen forty six. In two thousand four then, Raymond Gabby, you very much put your money where your mouth was. You decided to go into partnership with the Savoy Theatre in London. You set up something called the Savoy Opera Company. What was the idea?

Raymond Gubbay26:19

Well it was to produce uh popular opera in the West End for limited runs at uh affordable prices.

Presenter26:28

And you got some very punchy support. I mean, you know, there was an editorial in the Times saying you're doing a great thing, and you opened with what?

Raymond Gubbay26:32

Yeah.

Raymond Gubbay26:34

We opened with two operas which was probably a mistake, The Marriage of Figaro and The Barbara of Seville, and I think probably in hindsight the two operas themselves were probably not the ones we should have opened with.

Presenter26:44

Tell us what happened.

Raymond Gubbay26:45

Uh we couldn't sell enough tickets, and we had to stop.

Presenter26:48

And one opera critic wrote, The depressing conclusion is that not enough people are like opera. Do you

Raymond Gubbay26:49

You know what?

Raymond Gubbay26:54

Agree? No, I don't think so. I think we we got it wrong. I take it right on the chin because I was convinced we could make it work. But we couldn't. I think the time timing was bad. I think the choice of repertoire was bad. Maybe at a different time it would have been different. But I think it was a question of image, a question of

Raymond Gubbay27:21

Well, at the end it it it it's as simple as this. We could not sell enough tickets. We couldn't sell the the tickets uh that we needed to sell to keep it going. And this happens in the West End all the time. So we were just, you know, we were

Presenter27:34

Good way.

Raymond Gubbay27:34

Yeah.

Presenter27:34

Was there one moment when you knew when you maybe looked your partner in the eye and said, This is it, it's got a close?

Raymond Gubbay27:42

I think we knew pretty early on. I think we knew pretty early on. You know, even before the season opened, you can see that as soon as the tickets go on sale, there was this huge enthusiasm for the season. We had enormous press support. The critics were mixed, but there was some very, very good press. But at the end of the day, we just simply couldn't sell the tickets and we had to take it off.

Presenter28:03

So those people at Covent Garden, who you don't always get on terribly well with, couldn't have had their own point better proved from their perspective.

Raymond Gubbay28:10

Well, it's easy to say that. I'm not sure that that is right. Indeed, I mean, we had a lot of support from people in the business. Yes, that they can take satisfaction from saying that we got it wrong, and I can't gainsay that. But in this business, you've got to be an optimist. You've got to be able to come back to bounce back. And I carried on.

Presenter28:31

It's very interesting that you said just a moment ago, If I were to do it again, would you ever do it again?

Raymond Gubbay28:37

Not in the same way, but would I try and do something uh operatic in the West End? Yeah, why not? You know, if the right opportunity came and I thought the project was right. I think you've got to be an optimist in this business, and that's what drives you.

Presenter28:48

So a third opera house in the West End is something that is not improbable by your reckoning.

Raymond Gubbay28:52

I don't think it would be a third opera house, but I think uh operatic projects in the West End could work in the right circumstances. What's your next piece of music? My next piece of music is uh Marriage of Figaro, Dove Sono, The Countess Is Aria from Act Three, sung by Elizabeth Schwartzkopf.

Speaker 429:21

We don't be a true

Presenter29:59

Elizabeth Schwartzkopp singing Dove sono from Act three of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and you said, whilst that was playing, Raymond Gubby, that it was in fact played at your father's funeral.

Raymond Gubbay30:09

Yes, that's right. He loved Mozart and figaro in particular, so it was very fitting that uh that was played.

Presenter30:14

He he died at the end of the nineties, nineteen ninety eight. Given that your father, way back when, uh had had his fingers burnt to the tune of losing two hundred quid on a local production that he wanted to stage, it must have been very satisfying for him to see his his son Raymond not only being financially very successful but pursuing something he loved.

Raymond Gubbay30:34

Yes, I think I think he he he he really did enjoy it and uh he was very thrilled. Um he was terribly thrilled one day. He'd told me he'd rung up the uh the Chartered Account Institute of Chartered Accountants and given his name, uh, Gabe, and they said, Oh, as in Raymond and so he was really sort of thrilled about that. I just have to remember that.

Presenter30:52

You were saying also during that music that your mother and father died within a matter of a few months of each other.

Raymond Gubbay30:57

Yes, they did, yes, three months of each other, because my mother died first, she'd had Alzheimer's disease very sadly for the last five years of her life. And my father was support so supportive, incredibly so. And I think when she died, he just gave up. And it was sad but very moving that they died so close together.

Presenter31:19

Now, professionally for you, it's not always been swimming against the tide in the last forty years. You have had I mean productions like Madam Butterfly and Lab O M that have been very well received by the critics. Madam Butterfly.

Raymond Gubbay31:29

Yeah.

Presenter31:31

played to around about sixty thousand people over fourteen performances.

Raymond Gubbay31:34

Yeah.

Presenter31:35

Does that give you a lot of satisfaction?

Raymond Gubbay31:37

Oh yes, of course. I mean uh it's nice to to to get praise when it's when it's uh when it's there. But um I love going to rehearsals. I'm always uh you know, not I d I try not to hang around uh all the time, but I certainly go to rehearsals, not only just to be seen, but because I actually like to uh to be there and to hear the music and I hum along and I'm terrible probably, I make too much noise humming and singing away in the corner, but and they have to shut me up. But uh i it's just part of uh it's one of the great pleasures of what I do.

Presenter32:04

Uh you've branched out into some fairly extraordinary areas. You worked with the great uh cricket commentator Brian Johnson. Oh, yeah.

Raymond Gubbay32:10

Oh yes, that that was that was a joy. We did a programme about cricket, started it off at the Barbican during one of the Christmas festivals and then went on to take it all round the country. It was great fun.

Presenter32:21

And so you all traveled together then, those sort of band of brothers on the road.

Raymond Gubbay32:22

And a sort of band of brothers on the road. And so we always had to pack plenty of that into the mini bus. And after about half an hour of driving towards Leeds or somewhere up the motorway, he'd suddenly say, Gubbers, do you think we could break out the smokers and the muskers?

Raymond Gubbay32:47

We'd we'd we'd do that and um everybody was thereafter pretty mellow all day long, uh but it was great. He was a fantastic performer.

Presenter32:54

Oh, I wish I'd been there.

Raymond Gubbay32:55

In the game.

Presenter32:56

Uh

Raymond Gubbay32:56

Yeah.

Presenter32:56

It was super. Uh the personal investment and the energy that it takes to keep the show on the road for forty years has has that taken a a personal toll on you?

Raymond Gubbay33:06

Well, I don't think it helped my marriage, which uh um you know fell apart um it was at the day at the time when I was working uh very hard uh after the Barbican had opened and I think uh it wasn't the only reason but it w the pressure of working um evenings and weekends in particular probably did put a a further strain on on the marriage and didn't help certainly.

Presenter33:26

And you have two daughters now. You're a grandfather now.

Raymond Gubbay33:27

Grandfather now. Yes, I've got six grandchildren. I mean, it's why that's my life, really. I've got three in Ireland and three over here, and they're a hugely important part of my life.

Presenter33:37

What's your next record?

Raymond Gubbay33:38

It's the Brooke Violin Concerto played by Yehudi Menuin, somebody I had the enormous pleasure of working with on many occasions. And he actually played the Brooke concerto in the Barbican for me. He also did a lot of conducting there. And I actually presented what turned out to be his last concert at the Royal Albert Hall with the Beethoven Choral Symphony. He died three months later.

Presenter34:56

Part of the last movement of Brooke's violin concerto in G minor, played by Yehudi Menuin. So, along with the complete works of Shakespeare then, Raymond, and the Bible, or the Torah, whichever you prefer, um, what book are you going to choose?

Raymond Gubbay35:10

Well, I'd like to take the unabridged Collins Robert French English English French Dictionary. It it it delves into the language in such a way and it explains how it's used as well as simple translations. I I would find uh great um entertainment and enjoyment from from from being able to delve into that.

Presenter35:29

And what would your luxury be?

Raymond Gubbay35:31

It would be a Nespresso coffee machine with those cop capsules that give you wonderful coffee because I lived by that. And as long as I could take an equal supply of decaf and strong coffee, I'd be very happy. That would keep me going for forever.

Presenter35:46

We'll certainly give you that.

Raymond Gubbay35:47

Thank you.

Presenter35:48

And an almost impossible task, given that you had already to whittle it down to eight. If the waves were to crash on to the shore and wash away your disks, which one would you run to save above the others?

Raymond Gubbay35:58

I think the Beethoven, the Emperor Concerto. I think that's the one that really does it for me.

Presenter36:03

Arim and Gabby, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Raymond Gubbay36:06

A great pleasure.

Presenter36:14

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.