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2022-02-28-accounts

Company Registration number 3705788 Charity number 1080541

Trustees' Annual Report

&

Financial Statements

for the Year ending 28 February 2022

BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Contents

Page

Trustees’ Annual Report (including Directors’ Report) 2021-22

The Trustees of the Charity (Directors of the Company) have pleasure in presenting their report and the independently examined financial statements of the charity for the year beginning 1 March 2021 and ending 28 February 2022.

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATION DETAILS

Charity Name: BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

Registered Charity number: 1080541, entered in the Central Register of Charities on 3 May 2000

Registered Company number: 3705788

Principal address (registered office): Holcot House, Market Square, Bampton, Oxfordshire OX18 2JJ

The Trustees of the Charity, who are Directors of the Company, holding office through the year were: Hilary Reid Evans (Chairman) Gillian Mary French Nicholas Garthwaite Jeremy Peter Gray Andrew Hugh Penny Damian Edward Riddle Michael St. John Parker

Of these Trustees, Gillian French and Jeremy Gray act unpaid as Artistic Directors.

Our Administrator, Anthony Hall, also acts as Company Secretary; he is not a Trustee of the Charity.

Website: www.bamptonopera.org

Bankers:

HSBC, The Peak, 333 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1EJ

Independent Examiner: Peter Saltiel, Church & Charity Accounts Service, 7 Planchadeau, 23460 Saint-Pierre-Bellevue, France

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STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

The Company was incorporated in England and Wales on 2 February 1999, under registered number 3705788. It is limited by Guarantee and does not have a share capital.

There are currently 21 members of the Company.

Trustees, who must be or agree to become members of the Company, are appointed by existing Trustees. Trustees receive no salary or remuneration. The Company has introduced an induction programme for new Trustees.

The Board met twice during the year: the continuing Coronavirus pandemic necessitated that all meetings were held online. These were supplemented by the circulation of additional information and discussion as necessary, principally by email.

Our Patrons, whose role is honorary but who support us through their interest and attendance, are Bonaventura Bottone, Brian Kay, Sir Roger Norrington, Andrew Parrott, Sir David Pountney, Sir Curtis Price and Jean Rigby.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

The Company’s Object set out in its governing document is “to advance education for the public benefit by the promotion of the arts, in particular but not exclusively the art of opera”. To further this Object the Company performs a short summer season of opera with regular venues in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and London, as well as occasionally by invitation and promotion at other venues and festivals. An annual concert is also held in Bampton Parish Church on or close to 21 December and other concerts and events are arranged when appropriate.

The Company specialises in rare classical-period repertory, sung in English with the libretti usually translated by the Artistic Directors. The Company has revived or given the UK premières of many significant rare operas from the later eighteenth century.

The Company supports outstanding young professional singers and other practitioners early in their careers. Although we do not exclusively engage young artists, we endeavour to seek out and promote emerging talent. Many of our young singers find that their experience with us is educational as we nurture their talents in a supportive atmosphere. Through working with more established musicians and creative teams and receiving the interest of the public and press, their early careers are promoted. We established a biennial Young Singers’ Competition in 2013 to further our support of young musicians.

We present opera in a relaxed and accessible atmosphere at reasonable prices, without the formal etiquette sometimes associated with opera-going.

The Company maintains membership of Making Music which provide support services and guidance on a wide range of issues. The Opera and Music Theatre Forum, of which we have been a member for many years and whose services we have valued, was disbanded in October 2021; we have since joined a new umbrella organisation, Opera UK.

The Company relies heavily on a wide range of services provided by volunteers, especially living in or near Bampton, and is very grateful for their enthusiastic work. Many local residents host musicians during the Bampton week. We thank our local volunteers by means of a lunchtime reception in Bampton in September.

A Risk Assessment, prepared by the Trustees, is kept under review. This covers issues, amongst others, relating to key personnel, liabilities for accident or damage to property, contractual problems, cancellation

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liability, venue unavailability, funding, safeguarding and compliance, notably regarding disability. Production-specific Risk Assessments are also drawn up and relate especially to health and safety on stage and within the production action. The Company maintains insurance through the Making Music Insurance Scheme underwritten by Royal & Sun Alliance, which includes £5 million public liability cover, £10 million employer’s liability cover, and abandonment cover of £25,000.

PUBLIC BENEFIT

The Trustees have paid due regard to the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit in deciding what activities the charity should undertake.

We offer identifiable benefits:

We stage opera productions (as well as occasional concerts) in rural locations (Bampton and Westonbirt) as well as in London; we thus enable local rural communities to experience a high standard of professional musicmaking, at reasonable prices. We make our operas accessible and enjoyable to those in the public who may not have knowledge of the genre. The high professional standard of our work is testified in press reviews both locally and nationally. Each performance is attended by several hundred people. We are delighted that our audiences include regular opera-goers along with a significant proportion of ‘non-traditional’ public, i.e. those who do not habitually attend live classical music or opera.

We advance the education of the public through our performances themselves, especially as they are generally of unusual and rarely-performed music. We support the educational aspect of these performances with free pre-performance talks, always well attended, by personnel involved in the productions or visiting academics. We also research and commission extensive educational notes to publish in our programme booklets; these notes are also available on our website. The quality of these notes has been praised by leading critics.

Our performers are professional musicians, often at an early stage of their careers. We deliver identifiable educational benefits to them through the process of rehearsal, discussion and performance, under the guidance of the Artistic Directors. We also provide an educational benefit to our volunteers – some of these are students, and others are adults up to and well beyond retirement age: these volunteers experience (often for the first time) different facets of operatic work under our supervision.

Our work has led to newly commissioned editions of previously unpublished music and new English translations (thus, in both cases, enabling greater understanding by the public). These editions and translations are listed on our website and have been used by other companies.

We are not aware that any detriment or harm arises from carrying out our activities.

We provide benefit to the general public:

We provide benefit to every member of the general public who attends a performance. There is no geographical restriction applied to the opportunity to benefit, although our venues are clearly in defined localities. We advertise very widely and, on our website, and attract the public from well beyond local areas in the UK (as well as some from Europe and the USA). Our venues are wheelchair-accessible. We believe there are no other restrictions to the opportunity to benefit.

The high cost of professional productions means that we must charge admission to the general public to attend most of our performances. Nevertheless, we have always aimed to keep ticket prices at a reasonable level in order to encourage access. Half-price tickets are available at Bampton and Westonbirt for people under 16. In Bampton we also offer a quota of free tickets, in agreement with Bampton Parish Council, to those local residents who may wish to attend a performance but cannot afford to do so. For our performance at St John’s Smith Square concessions are available to a range of sections of the public. Our ticket prices are considered to

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be very reasonable in comparison to those of other opera companies of similar quality, and our perceived excellent value-for-money is frequently commented on favourably by the press and by our audiences.

We occasionally offer an entertainment (for example a recital or talk, with refreshments) to those who financially support us through our Friends’ scheme, but this benefit is considered to be incidental. We offer a free programme booklet (otherwise sold at £5) to our Friends, if desired. There are no further material benefits to Friends.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCES

2021 proved almost as unsettled a year as 2020 in terms of the pandemic and the constantly shifting regulations pertaining to it. However we were able to achieve all that we planned, albeit sometimes with smaller audiences than usual. Following postponement enforced at less than a week’s notice when the November 2020 lockdown was announced, we were eventually able to perform in concert Gluck, The Crown (‘ La Corona’ , 1765) on 18 May, St John’s Smith Square, London, and on 22 May, University Church, Oxford (our first appearance at this venue), both to the maximum allowed audiences of 80. Singers were sopranos Harriet Eyley, Samantha Louis-Jean, Lisa Howarth and Lucy Anderson, narrator Rosa French, with players from CHROMA, conductor Robert Howarth. We were thrilled at the very positive reception by audiences and performers– for many this was their first live music since the pandemic struck. Thanks to a grant from Arts Council England, we professionally filmed the London performance and this was available online for streaming for several months for a small fee. These performances were only the second-ever of this opera in the UK.

The more positive ‘road map’ announced by the government at Easter enabled us to stage Gluck’s 'Paris and Helen' (postponed from 2020) at our three usual summer venues - 23-24 July, Deanery Garden, Bampton; 30 August, Westonbirt School, Glos; 24 September, St John’s Smith Square, London. It was difficult to negotiate the shifting government regulations, especially in terms of rehearsing a staged opera, but we persevered and produced one of our most successful stagings, winning high praise from the critics with 4- and 5-star reviews. We were delighted at the responses of the public and we provided very worthwhile opportunities for our singers (major roles were taken by Lucy Anderson, Lisa Howarth, Milly Forrest, Lauren Lodge-Taylor and Ella Taylor) and a small chorus and two young dancers. 'Paris and Helen ' is a substantial and significant opera but is very rarely performed and has never before been staged in London. The conductor was Thomas Blunt and the production was directed by Jeremy Gray; the Bampton Opera Orchestra played at Bampton and Westonbirt, and CHROMA at London.

In the autumn we held our Fifth biennial Young Singers’ Competition, with the public Final in the Holywell Music Room Oxford on 28 November. There were 59 competitors and six were ultimately selected for the final. The adjudicating panel was again chaired by tenor Bonaventura Bottone, a patron of the Company. Winners were 28 yr-old soprano Cassandra Wright and her accompanist Ilan Kurtser; second prize went to soprano Jessica Cale. A prizewinners’ recital was held at 22 Mansfield Street, London W1, courtesy of Bob and Elisabeth Boas, on 23 February 2022.

We held our annual Christmas ‘St Beornwald’s concert’ in St Mary’s Bampton, on 12 December – a striking programme of Venetian baroque vocal music based around Monteverdi’s Christmas Vespers . The Bampton Classical Voices were directed by Andrew Griffiths. The concert was well-attended although, again, health and safety concerns required a cap on numbers and some adjustments to the usual format.

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FINANCIAL REVIEW

Income for the financial year was £119,213 (2020-21: £61,071).

Income earned from tickets was £31,320 (2020-21: £3,785) including programmes, bar and advertising.

Expenditure for the financial year was £125,544 (2020-21: £29,059), reflecting the much-increased activity compared to the pandemic year.

In order to maintain ticket prices at a reasonable level and so increase accessibility for the general public, the company depends on raising significant extra funds from donations and grants. At the beginning of the financial year, we were able to carry forward funding awarded to us in the previous year when the pandemic caused most activity to be curtailed. Our work in 2021 was thus supported by grants (either newly awarded or accrued) from Bampton Parish Council, Bampton Village Community Shop, Bishopsdown Trust, Maria Bjornson Memorial Fund, John S Cohen Foundation, Rainbow Dickinson Trust, Doris Field Charitable Trust, Joyce Grenfell Memorial Trust, Derek Hill Foundation, Marchus Trust, Mr & Mrs J.A. Pye’s Charitable Settlement and the Patrick Rowland Foundation. The Crown was additionally supported by an Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant. Although grants received during the year totalled £23,225 a considerable number of grants were (due to Covid cancellations) carried forward from the previous year and £36,000 (2020-21: £3,900) has been applied to this financial year with the remainder recorded as deferred income in the balance sheet.

Further funding was provided by the Friends of Bampton Classical Opera: we continue to be grateful for the essential support and loyalty of our Friends, often over many years. Total income during the year from the Friends was £37,972 and, after including prior year donations brought forward due to Covid cancellation, £28,150 has been allocated to this financial year, and the remainder also recorded as deferred income (202021: £15,689). This has been supplemented by further donations of £9,560 and £14,390 carried forward from the previous year. £16,609 has been allocated to this financial year and the remainder is also recorded as deferred income (2020-21: £23,006). We again held a successful Big Give Christmas Challenge in December 2021, raising funds towards our future season. We qualified for HMRC Gift Aid on the basis of donations and activity during the previous year.

A Treasurer Account is held with HSBC. We also hold a Reserve Account with COIF Charities Deposit Fund (CCLA Investment Management Ltd). We maintain a reserve of £20,000 as contingency, especially in case ticket sales are poor as a result of adverse weather at our open-air venue. The Trustees believe they have sufficient reserves.

We do not have any other investments and accordingly we do not have an investment policy.

RESULTS

The results for the year and the financial position at the end of the year are shown in the following financial statements.

This Annual Report was approved on 11 October 2022 by the Board of Trustees (the Directors of the Company) of Bampton Classical Opera, and is signed on behalf of the Trustees by:

Jeremy Peter Gray, Trustee, 11 October 2022

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Independent Examiner’s Report to the

Trustees/Directors/Members of the Bampton Classical Opera Ltd Charity no.: 1080541 Company no.: 3705788

I report on the accounts of the Trust for the year ended 28th February 2022 which are set out on pages 7-14.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity’s trustees of the Company (who are also the directors of the company for the purposes of company law), you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Company are not required to be audited for this year under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity’s accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 (“the 2011 Act”). In carrying out my examination, I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention which gives me cause to believe that:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Peter Saltiel Church & Charity Accounts Service Planchadeau, 23460 Saint-Pierre-Bellevue France

formerly, 69 Portland Place Greenhithe, Kent, DA9 9FE Dated 13th October 2022

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Statement of Financial Activities for the Year Ended 28th February 2022 (Including income & expenditure account)

Income
Income & endowments from:
Donations and legacies
Charitable Activities
Investments
Total income
Expenditure
Expenditure on:
Charitable Expenditure
Total expenditure
Net movement in funds
Total funds brought forward
Total funds carried forward		 Unrestricted
& Total
Funds
Unrestricted
& Total
Funds
Notes
2022
2021
£
£
3
3.1
86,285
56,981
3.2
32,915
3,785
3.3
13
305
119,213
61,071
4
125,544
29,059
125,544
29,059
(6,331)
32,012
64,167
32,155
57,836
64,167
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
4

All activities are regarded as continuing.

The above statement includes all recognised gains and losses during the year.

The Notes to the Accounts on pages 10 to 15 form part of these Financial Statements.

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Balance Sheet as at 28th February 2022

alance Sheet as at 28th February 2022
FIXED ASSETS
Equipment
CURRENT ASSETS
Cash at bank
Debtors
CREDITORS
Amounts falling due within one year
NET CURRENT ASSETS
NET ASSETS
FUNDS
Unrestricted Fund
TOTAL FUNDS		 Notes
2022
2021
£
£
7
-
-
86,727
104,712
5
1,362
-
88,089
104,712
6
(30,253)
(40,545)
57,836
64,167
57,836
64,167
57,836
64,167
57,836
64,167
7
5
6

The trustees (who are also the directors of the company for the purposes of company law) confirm that for the year ended 29[th] February 2022:

The accounts have been examined by an independent examiner whose report appears on page 7.

The trustees acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Act with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts.

The Notes on pages 10 to 15 form an integral part of these accounts.

These accounts, which have been prepared in accordance with the provisions in the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies, were approved by the trustees / Directors on 11 October 2022 and signed on their behalf by:

Hilary Reid Evans Chair

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts

1 Basis of preparation

These accounts (financial statements) have been prepared under the historic cost convention, with items recognised at cost or transaction value, unless otherwise stated in the relevant notes(s), in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) issued on 16 July 2014 and subsequent amendments, and with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102).

At the time of approving the accounts, the Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charity has sufficient reserves and that the charity is a going concern.

There have been no changes in the basis of accounting during the year.

There have been no changes to the previous accounts during the financial year.

There have been no changes to accounting estimates.

1.6 Judgements and Estimations

The trustees have not made any significant judgements in the process of applying the accounting policies and there are no areas of estimation uncertainty that have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities.

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts (cont’d)

2 Accounting policies

10

BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts (cont’d)

2 Accounting policies (cont’d)

There no employees and no transactions with related parties.

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts (cont’d)

3 Analysis of income

----- Start of picture text -----
2022 2021
£ £
3.1 Donations & legacies
Friends of Bampton Classical Opera 28,150 15,689
Sponsorship & grants 36,000 3,900
Other donations 16,609 23,006
Tax refund 5,526 14,386
86,285 56,981
3.2 Charitable Activities
Tickets, programmes, bar & advertising 31,320 3,785
-
Young Singers' Competition 1,595
32,915 3,785
3.3 Investments
Interest 13 305
13 305
Total Income 119,213 61,071
<<<<
----- End of picture text -----

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts (cont’d)

4 Analysis of expenditure

5
6		 Debtors
Creditors
Notes
2022
£
Expenditure on charitable activities
Performers Fees
59,240
Technical, Music, Set & Costume Costs
29,287
Accommodation, Catering & Storage
2,925
Design, Print & Marketing
12,534
Young Singers' Competition & Prizes
9,340
113,326
Support Costs
Office Expenses & Administration
7,130
Administrative Support
4,350
Accountancy
725
Companies House
13
12,218
Total Charitable Expenditure
125,544
Total Expenditure
125,544
2022
£
Prepaid Expenses
1,362
1,362
2022
£
Creditors
1,775
Deferred Income (released in full during the following year)
28,478
30,253		 2021
£
6,720
3,387
2,071
7,134
-		 2021
£
6,720
3,387
2,071
7,134
-
19,312
6,559
2,500
675
13
9,747
29,059
29,059
2021
£
-
-
2021
£
675
39,870
40,545

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BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA Company Registration No: 3705788 Registered Charity No: 1080541

Notes to the Accounts (cont’d)

7 Capital purchases

Balance
Less Depreciation		 2021
£
-
-
-		 2020
£
-
-
-

8 Staff costs

There are no employees and therefore no employee was paid more than £60,000 per annum.

9 Remuneration to Trustees:

The Trustees received no remuneration and no expenses were reimbursed.

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