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3 MAKING IT HAPPEN

By early 1965 the boisterous Judy LaMarsh had taken over the culture portfolio from the refined Maurice Lamontagne. She would stay in this job until the end of Prime Minister Pearson’s tenure. A down-to-earth populist in style and heart, LaMarsh seized the NAC file and gave it her full support, guiding the legislation effectively through the House of Commons. Wags who had worried about the new Arts Centre being too elitist joked that if LaMarsh liked it, it must be good. On July 14, 1966, having cleared the hurdles of both the House of Commons and the Senate, the National Arts Centre Act received Royal Assent.

LaMarsh wasted no time in appointing the new Board of Trustees. Lawrence Freiman, a friend of LaMarsh and George McIlraith, the minister of public works and the “Ottawa minister” in the Cabinet, was made chair. A mercurial, intense man who ran the family department-store business, Freiman loved the arts, served on the Stratford Festival Board, and favoured big symphonies and grand theatres. Both he and Southam were Ottawa-born and wanted the best for their city, but their tastes were different and, for much of the time they worked together at the Arts Centre, they would be at odds with one another.

The Honourable Judy LaMarsh, Maurice Lamontagne’s successor as secretary of state in Lester Pearson’s Cabinet.

The other eight trustees were a broad cross-section of people with experience in the arts and business in Canada. The heads of important federal cultural agencies such as the CBC, the Canada Council, and the National Film Board were given ex-officio status on the board, as were the mayors of Ottawa and Hull. This was the first time that representatives of these other agencies were placed on the board of a sister organization, and these linkages would prove useful in the years ahead.

It was several months before the new board met for the first time, on March 8, 1967, in the Orange Room of Ottawa’s Château Laurier Hotel, just across the street from the building site. In the interim, Freiman had set about developing his own vision of how the centre should be organized. He had many friends in theatre, including the English director Tyrone Guthrie, who had helped launch the Stratford Festival. Freiman consulted him about the appointment of an overall director for the National Arts Centre. An ad hoc committee that included writer Robertson Davies and Dr. Arnold Walter had already considered this question and concluded that the obvious choice was Southam. Although reluctant, Freiman was eventually persuaded by these “distinguished Canadian figures” to accept Southam as the new director general. Once the polite preliminaries were over, the first motion by the new board was to transform Coordinator Hamilton Southam into the NAC’s first director general. Bruce Corder was also confirmed as Southam’s second-in-command and would soon become his “right hand” in running the place.¹

Southam prepared well for these first meetings, and a series of motions that he and his team had developed clicked effortlessly through the proceedings. At the heart of his message was Jean Gascon’s idea that, “without resident companies, the building would be misbegotten.”² He sketched out carefully the plans that had been developed with the help of the advisory groups for both theatre and music. While there were no plans yet for resident dance or opera, Southam already had his eye on the Summer Festival and recommended that the board ask the government for a separate $1 million per year to pay for it. He had hired the Canadian-born arts administrator Henry Wrong as his future director of programming. Wrong, the designated head of the future Festival as well, had been the special assistant to Sir Rudolf Bing at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and, not surprisingly, was a man with big ideas. His suggestions for the Festival already included visits by European companies such as the Salzburg Opera, which, he said, “could drop by Ottawa on its way to Japan in 1970.” The immediate task, however, was to persuade Cabinet to approve approximately $2.5 million for the Arts Centre’s general operations. Judy LaMarsh, primed by Lawrence Freiman, readily lent her political support.

A big item on the first meeting’s agenda was an upcoming visit by the Queen, a prospect almost as exciting to the trustees as the new centre itself. A $5,000 budget was allocated for this celebration, and an invitation sent to actor Christopher Plummer to host the ceremonies at the building site. On July 5, 1964, Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Ottawa on her way back to England after attending a conference in Quebec City. It was a first big public moment for the National Arts Centre: on this sunny summer morning, the Queen took an hour out of a crammed schedule on Parliament Hill to come over to the chaotic construction site to unveil a plaque. A crowd of spectators enjoyed the brief but lively outdoor artistic show that was presented on a temporary wooden stage erected the previous night on a patch of green sod hurriedly laid down in the middle of the muddy grounds. A special fanfare for the occasion had been composed by Louis Applebaum, and a proclamation written by author Robertson Davies. The lines were to be delivered by Plummer in English and by renowned Quebec actress Denise Pelletier in French, although there were many arguments over the translation of Davies’s words into the language of Molière. At the last moment Plummer cancelled, and another Canadian actor, Robert Whitehead, stepped in to replace him. Freiman was in his element showing the Queen around the half-built site to the cheers of the blue-helmeted construction workers. Dozens of dignitaries were also on hand to celebrate. As the excitement subsided and the July board meetings continued the trustees expressed relief that the visit was over and that thinking could turn once again to more practical matters.

First NAC chairman Lawrence Freiman with Lester Pearson and Queen Elizabeth II on July 5, 1964, at an unveiling ceremony of a plaque marking the Queen’s visit to the unfinished site. Photo © John Evans.

Considerable debate was devoted at the first meeting to the organizational model. Freiman opposed Southam’s preference for the decentralized “Brussels” concept, describing its associated independent companies as “too expensive and duplicating responsibility.”³ With LaMarsh supporting his position, the new trustees swiftly voted to adopt the “Stratford” approach, in which they, through the centre’s own staff, would have responsibility for all the artistic work presented there. Southam, who had promoted the Brussels model for nearly three years, acquiesced without a murmur. Decades later, when hard times hit the Arts Centre, this early choice would be revisited and thought given again to separating the orchestra into an independent if resident company. This fragmentation did not occur and, so far, the original decision has been maintained.

Henry Wrong initiated plans for the programming of the Opening Festival, now tentatively scheduled for June 1969. The first regular seasons would not commence until the fall. The inaugural event was to be “Canadian, bi-cultural and artistically interesting.” Southam nevertheless continued to travel widely in Europe, forming alliances and viewing performances that might be brought to Ottawa in due course. One trip took him to Prague, where he first saw the work of the great Czech designer Josef Svoboda. The regular annual Festival was targeted to begin in the summer of 1970 under the aegis of the Arts Centre. Wrong had been thinking big—hugely, in fact—about this event. Besides the visit from the Salzburg Opera, there were plans for four different opera productions in a two-week season, complete with soloists from the Vienna Staatsoper. Even a Parisian haute couture fashion show was mentioned. Unfortunately, a personal tiff between Wrong and Southam would mean that the programming director would not be around to see any of these plans to completion. Although Wrong had already moved to Ottawa and settled his family into a new house in anticipation of his position at the centre, he was shortly to be fired.

The trouble was triggered by malicious gossip instigated by one of the artists now making their way to the Arts Centre in anticipation of future work. Something unpleasant was reported to Southam about Wrong and, instead of checking his facts, Southam took it at face value. When he confronted Wrong, the latter made an angry comment about the breakdown of Southam’s marriage to his first wife, Jacqueline. In the midst of his busy work life, Southam’s personal affairs had taken a tempestuous turn, and his long-standing attraction to women had reasserted itself. Southam was furious and, in a rare pugilistic moment, threatened to strike Wrong if he did not take back his hurtful words. Wrong declined, and Southam responded by “boxing his ears,”⁴ resulting in the threat of a messy lawsuit. To avoid any further embarrassment to the NAC, Southam made a financial settlement with Wrong and the two arts administrators parted ways. Years later Southam mused that perhaps he had not been fair to Wrong, but the scandal had an immediate effect on planning at the centre as Wrong’s initial grand ideas for the 1970 Festival were dropped with his departure.⁵

Fortunately for Southam, David Haber, the phenomenally successful impresario for the cultural festival at Expo 67, was waiting in the wings. Although he could not join the Arts Centre until his work in Montreal was completed, he came to Ottawa, met with Southam, and agreed to join the staff in March 1968 for an annual salary of $20,000. His arrival brought the centre an invaluable asset. With a tiny staff of one assistant and a secretary, he functioned, with the exception of the Music Department, as a one-man programming department for the next five years.

As 1967 unfolded, newly appointed NAC staff members assisted the busy Centennial Commission with its artistic activities, helping it to tour shows across the country. They arranged some of the popular programming, including tours by the Quebec singers Louise Forrestier, Pierre Ferland, and Ginette Reno, who were seen only rarely outside Quebec, in other parts of the country. They also organized European tours for the Quebec dance company Les Feux Follets and for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Their success and expertise in moving artists around the country and overseas gave Haber an idea that he delivered to Southam shortly after he arrived in Ottawa: the Arts Centre could develop a National Booking Office, which would serve arts groups all over Canada. Southam immediately grasped that this initiative could contribute to the centre’s national role. Around the same time, the board realized that it must begin implanting the idea of the National Arts Centre in the general public’s mind. It authorized management to hire a public-relations director, Laurent Duval, and allotted him a $100,000 budget for a campaign to start putting the word out.

Most of the trustees’ thinking in those early days was wide-ranging and ambitious. Lawrence Freiman had by now resigned from the Stratford Festival Board, but he was still keen to devise a plan that would make the Stratford Festival company the resident English theatre company at the National Arts Centre. He dreamed of having it tour the country under the NAC’s aegis and initiated a voluminous correspondence with Floyd Chalmers, the chair of the Stratford board, who shared his thinking. Characterized by their intimate “Dear Larry/Dear Floyd” salutations, the two embarked on what would be a lengthy, sometimes tortuous, exploration to make Stratford part of the NAC. It was left to Southam to work out the prospects for French theatre—a decision that would soon lead to trouble after he willingly took the advice of the francophone theatrical community,

There were non-artistic matters to deal with as well. Southam had discovered during his time in Sweden that the best restaurant in Stockholm was at the Swedish Opera. Good dining and good theatre had always gone hand in hand in his mind, and he firmly believed that “more things were wrought by a good lunch than others dreamed of.”⁶ The local property developer William Teron had experience building hotels in Ottawa. He had helped Southam out by taking over the National Capital Arts Alliance when Southam had no further use for the organization, and by way of thanks Southam had assisted his appointment to the new board of the NAC. Teron was considered the “house” expert in restaurants and given the job of exploring the catering requirements for the centre. Here, again, Southam knew what he wanted. After a particularly delightful dinner at the famous Paris restaurant Chez Maxim’s—an august operation that had also been part of the French Pavilion at Expo 67—he had fleetingly toyed with the idea of inviting this establishment to come to Ottawa to look after catering at the Arts Centre. Although the idea came to nothing, his ambitious thinking would lead to the inclusion of a grand restaurant at the centre. Unfortunately, provincial Ottawans would take a long time to develop the habit of dining at expensive restaurants, and the food service at the NAC became a millstone that dragged down the NAC’s bottom line through the early years.

Another extravagant plan dreamed up in this first year and indicative of the trustees’ eagerness to plunge into some artistic endeavour was the creation of a mobile theatre, a travelling truck known as Le Portage, which would tour through the Ottawa region. Modelled after the trailer-trucks that were touring Canada with Centennial exhibitions, this project would eventually turn into an expensive folly and end its days in a cornfield a hundred miles east of Ottawa. The problem was the ingenious but costly design that called for the side of the truck to fold down and become a theatre stage. Before the trustees could learn enough about costs, the price for designing and building this concept had run away with them. Still, during the year or two that it functioned, it toured theatre throughout the Ottawa Valley on both sides of the river, heralding the art that was coming soon to the permanent new stages.*

Towards this goal, the Arts Centre continued to hire talented staff, including some of the best and most experienced theatre people in the country. Many were ready to embrace a grand new initiative after their work on the hugely successful cultural festival at Expo, which, as it drew to a close, was generally agreed to be one of the greatest collections of artistic excellence presented anywhere in the world. In addition to David Haber, staff joining the NAC included Andis Celms, Expo’s talented technical administrator, now hired to manage technical affairs in the NAC’s theatres. Celms would stay on for the next thirty years, rising to become head of the Theatre Department and, finally, if briefly, senior artistic director. Box-office expert Ted Demetre, a quiet-spoken but front-of-house wizard, also signed on. He had saved the day at Expo when the fancy electronic ticket machines had broken down at the beginning of the festival, and he had doled out thousands of tickets by hand to ensure that people got into the early performances. He too would have a remarkable career at the Arts Centre, putting his talents to work for many years in the Variety and Dance Department, a consistent money-maker for the NAC coffers which helped subsidize the more esoteric art forms. Both men would spend the bulk of their careers at the Arts Centre, becoming indispensable team players.

Le Portage, the mobile theatre that was the new board’s first venture into the actual arts, proved an expensive venture. Photo © John Evans.

Behind all the dreams and plans, vigorous efforts were ongoing to get the NAC’s financial house in order and to make long-term arrangements to secure the necessary financial support from the government. Southam used his contacts at the cultural agencies and at senior levels of the Treasury Board to work on the budget, while, in-house, Bruce Corder wrestled with schemes to make both the parking garage and the commercial space allocated for shops along Elgin Street into sources of funds for the new centre. Southam and his board estimated that they would need at least $2.5 million from the government for each of the first two years’ operations, plus an additional $1 million for the Festival, which they hoped to launch in the summer of 1970.

At the September 1967 meeting, board members finally settled on the official name for the centre. After three years of discussion, they rejected Southam’s romantic notion of calling the place “Les Rideaux”—a name that evoked for him his summer estate in the Rideau Lakes—choosing instead the National Arts Centre. The name translated nicely, although Southam grumbled that it had “a dull, institutional ring.” At the same time, the board threw out the potentially contentious idea of naming the various halls after famous Canadians, opting instead for the generic labels of “Opera,” “Theatre,” “Salon,” “Studio,” and even “Le Restaurant” and “Le Café”—names that would stick almost all the way through the NAC’s first thirty-five years. In 2000, Southam “succumbed to the temptation” to allow the Opera to be named after him and it has since been known as Southam Hall.⁷

While government officials worked on the structure and organization of the new centre, other supporters were preoccupied with arranging its artistic content. It is impossible today to imagine a small group of citizens agreeing to work together to establish an arts centre of the scope and complexity of the National Arts Centre, and then to go on to build the orchestra, theatre, and opera that would perform in it. Yet, incredibly, that is what Southam and his colleagues set out to accomplish.

Nothing was more carefully thought out or pursued than the creation of the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO). Credit for this achievement must go to a handful of dedicated music professionals who mostly had their careers at the CBC, the National Film Board, or a university. These men were determined to improve the place of music in Canada, and in the postwar period their ideas were allowed to flourish.

For almost two decades, there had been a reasonably well-functioning symphony orchestra in Ottawa, most recently under the leadership of concertmaster Eugene Kash, then married to the exuberant mezzo-soprano Maureen Forrester. In the late forties and fifties, the Ottawa Philharmonic had been the first orchestra in Canada to introduce a series of children’s concerts, but the orchestra had foundered in 1960 over problems with the musicians’ union. The resulting musical gap in the capital had been filled by seasonal visits from both the Toronto Symphony and the Montreal Symphony orchestras. As the National Capital Arts Alliance prepared its study on a possible future performing arts centre in the city, it presented little hope for a new symphony orchestra in the region. Perhaps “after the Centre was built and Ottawa’s population increased,”⁸ it mused, a new orchestra would stand a chance. In the meantime, the visiting orchestras could fill the gap.

This kind of thinking changed dramatically once the Arts Centre planners were ignited by Jean Gascon’s early statement that “the new centre must have a heart that beats.”⁹ Although it was an audacious move in the eyes of the country’s established musical community, the members of the music committee quickly decided that there must be a new orchestra. With Louis Applebaum in the chair of this stellar group, Southam was receiving advice from some of the country’s most notable musical thinkers. The gregarious Applebaum had been a moving force in Canadian music from the early fifties, working extensively at the CBC and the National Film Board, composing music for productions at both organizations, and developing a broad and rich music program at the Stratford Festival. (Eventually he would even become a senior arts bureaucrat.) Now, in his May 1965 report for a music program at the new Arts Centre, he wrote: “A good orchestra is called for. A superb one would be more to the point.”

The idea for a small chamber-sized orchestra had been initially suggested a year earlier by the CBC’s Jean-Marie Beaudet—another consultant to the Arts Centre and ex-officio member of the music advisory committee. He played a crucial role in figuring out the practical details and, by October 1964, his thoughts had crystallized into a carefully thought-out proposal for a mid-sized ensemble. The plan called for an orchestra that would “give year-round concerts, provide the musical backbone for a summer festival, serve as a pit orchestra for visiting ballet and opera companies and play an educational role in the community as well as, possibly, offering its service to the CBC.”¹⁰ There was also the possibility of “national touring.” The speed with which these ideas emerged was remarkable, and the real task soon became how best to put them into effect.

Jean-Marie Beaudet came from the CBC to be the NAC’s first director of music. Photo © John Evans.

Beaudet’s contribution to the creation of the NAC orchestra would be hard to overestimate. This balding, slightly foppish, late-marrying bachelor, who smoked cigarettes from an ebony holder and peered out beneath a deeply furrowed brow through dark horn-rimmed glasses, gave all his support to the creation of this new all-Canadian orchestra. Like Applebaum, he was completely dedicated to the growth and development of the Canadian musical scene. With his excellent experience in managing musical programs and their budgets at the CBC, he had, by October 1964, laid out the preliminary budget for a conductor and expenses for a forty-piece orchestra operating for a forty-eight-week season. Although the CBC had made no commitment as yet, Beaudet suggested that the corporation could contribute to the budget by taking weekly one-hour broadcasts from the new orchestra for the radio network, and he pointed to the potential for television work as well. When the Arts Centre later got down to real budgeting, Beaudet’s numbers were found to be close to the mark. His vision for the orchestra read like a recipe for making a cake: “10 first violins … 8 second … 6 violas … 4 cellos … 3 bass … etc.”¹¹ He also presented sound advice on contentious issues such as salaries, the role of the powerful musicians’ union, and what should happen when the orchestra needed to hire local musicians to augment itself for larger works. Beaudet’s “masterplan” memo became an invaluable tool for Southam for use with everyone—from the government’s Interdepartmental Steering Committee to members of the local musical community. It provided the groundwork for future discussions on musical life in Ottawa.

Throughout the fall of 1964, Beaudet continued to pour out ideas to his committee colleagues. Writing in both English and French, he pointed out to Southam the cost problems of a big symphonic orchestra, the role of the National Youth Orchestra as a source of musicians, and the importance of professional experience to music students still pursuing their studies. When Dr. Frederick Karam mentioned that he was thinking about establishing a music school at the University of Ottawa, Beaudet wrote to Southam that the whole enterprise engendered a “spirit of hope” in him.

Faced with this enthusiasm, Southam followed the advice of another committee member, Dr. Arnold Walter, and wrote to Professor Ezra Schabas at the University of Toronto’s School of Music, asking for his comments on Beaudet’s ideas. Schabas not only backed up Beaudet’s proposals but expanded on them.¹² As a former general manager of the National Youth Orchestra, Schabas was sensitive to Beaudet’s suggestion of integrating young musicians into the new orchestra, and he wrote a long and detailed response to Southam. With this backing in hand, Southam took the next step, asking Applebaum and his committee to prepare a full in-depth report on how this plan could be achieved.

While awaiting this study, Southam organized a generous reception on March 1, 1965, for parliamentarians in the West Block on Parliament Hill. There, architect Fred Lebensold, using the latest models and plans for the project, set out for the assembled MPs, senators, and others the details of this artistic work in progress. The politicians were charmed. Like a juggler whirling a series of plates in the air, Southam moved easily back and forth in the following weeks on all fronts, keeping up the momentum. His diary notes confirm that he missed no occasion or opportunity to promote the centre. He also continued his hectic social life and attended performances of plays, music, and dance in every city he visited.

Applebaum presented his report in May 1965. It would become the official blueprint for the development of serious music in the capital region for the foreseeable future. While not all of his dreams and aspirations would be fulfilled, most of the report’s key planks were introduced. At its core was the simple premise that “orchestral musicians must be involved in the community’s life and in the education of its children.”¹³

While compiling the document, Applebaum met with officials at both of Ottawa’s universities. Davidson Dunton, the president of Carleton University, had expressed some interest in expanding its music options but was not interested in a full-scale Faculty of Music. At the Université d’Ottawa, however, Applebaum found a more sympathetic ear in its rector, Father Roger Guindon, and its PR director, Bill Boss. Both became enthusiastic cheerleaders for the new centre. Applebaum and Southam were invited to make a presentation to the university’s Senate, and by February of the following year they were assured that the governors had found money in their budget for a School of Music. Applebaum also recommended a conservatory for primary music education and a special school for gifted children, although these particular dreams were not to be realized.¹⁴ All Applebaum’s suggestions were based on the importance of a good education in music.

In the early months of 1967, as the Board of Trustees met for the first time, the question of the new orchestra was among the biggest topics of discussion. The board was having a hard time making up its mind what to do. Applebaum’s carefully prepared report advocated a regional approach to music, but the trustees dithered over approving the core idea of the orchestra. Their uncertainty was reflected in an anguished paper prepared by Toronto trustee A.C. McKim entitled “To Be or Not to Be—An Orchestra,” which attempted to set out the different points of view.¹⁵ Despite all the preparatory work, it was up to the new trustees to make the real decisions. By July, Dr. Arnold Walter and a number of the other musical heavyweights on the board were becoming impatient. Walter wrote Southam a stern note urging him to get on with things. He advised the new director general to get together with Beaudet to resolve such issues as union negotiations, auditioning musicians, and hiring a conductor. There was no time to waste.

Although the trustees had yet to give the go-ahead for an orchestra, this indecision did not stop them from discussing whom they might hire as a conductor. They were thinking big—Charles Munch, the former music director of the Boston Symphony, Cleveland’s George Szell, and London’s Sir John Barbirolli would be asked for advice. Perhaps one of them could be engaged on a limited basis, maybe with a Canadian conductor as an assistant and the possibility of succeeding him in due course. The importance of having a Canadian conductor was noted, but it was felt more important to have a first-class person who could develop the ensemble.

As the controversy over the existence of the orchestra continued, the civil servants inside the office of the secretary of state were feeling the heat. There were sustained protests from Montreal and Toronto, whose orchestras feared they would be robbed of both players and money, and who argued that they could provide all the music Ottawa needed. Southam tried to ease matters by arranging meetings, attended by Freiman, with the other orchestra boards, but these encounters were of little avail. Intense lobbying continued at the political level to forestall the creation of the NAC ensemble. Henry Hindley, a senior adviser to Judy LaMarsh and a behind-the-scenes friend to the new centre, urged Southam to write out a solid case for the creation of the new orchestra and to present it to the minister. The final decision to authorize the NAC Orchestra would be made by the federal Cabinet.

Other arguments raged internally at the Arts Centre, especially over the proposed orchestra’s size. Despite the careful groundwork laid out by Beaudet and Applebaum, which examined every aspect and implication of a chamber-sized ensemble, Lawrence Freiman much preferred large symphony orchestras. He insisted that Southam travel to New York with him to meet with Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein urged the creation of a larger orchestra because of the vastly greater number of works it could perform.

Freiman’s view reflected local opinion. The Ottawa Philharmonic had functioned well in the postwar period, and Ottawa’s classical music lovers were still enamoured of large symphonic orchestras. Southam had to tread carefully to try to maintain their support. Gradually Freiman began to see that creating a larger orchestra in direct competition with Toronto and Montreal would present insoluble political problems, and he came around to Southam’s view, but the other local supporters of the Philharmonic remained unconvinced. Despite Southam’s efforts, including many lunches and informal meetings over drinks, the nervous members of what was left of the now-defunct Ottawa Philharmonic’s board of directors still wanted a larger ensemble. That was a worry, given that this local musical cadre would be important to future audience support. Southam exercised all his wiles, introducing them to Beaudet and acquainting them with the budding plans for the smaller group. For once his entertaining efforts failed, and he determined finally to go around them but not without throwing a diplomatic olive branch by arranging for a special paper on “continuing relations with the local community,” a task that was left to William Teron.

By early summer, the creative and far-thinking Jean-Marie Beaudet had been seconded from the CBC to the NAC staff. He joyfully took up the job and never returned to the corporation. He would become the Arts Centre’s first director of music, thereby ensuring that the substance of the orchestra concept and many of the other proposals for music in Ottawa would come to fruition. With the decision on the orchestra looming, Beaudet’s task was to prepare a persuasive briefing paper for the September meetings of the board. This carefully layered and detailed submission presented all the facts and figures that had been worked out in the previous months. While the Toronto/ Montreal pressure continued, with regional MPs and senior Cabinet members now pulled into the fray, the NAC board’s newly created Executive Committee was effectively doing its own lobbying.

Southam, following Hindley’s advice, had forwarded a lengthy memo to Judy LaMarsh which set out in lofty and lyrical terms the case for the arts, and particularly music, in society. Leaving no reference untapped, he ranged across the role of various kings and princes, as well as that of more recent socialist and democratic leaders who had recognized and supported the value of artistic activity in human life. He made lavish references to French culture minister André Malraux and to the views of Mme. Ekaterina Furtseva, a Russian minister of culture who had recently visited Ottawa and dined with LaMarsh. To make sure the Canadian minister got the point, Southam included the interesting information that a socialist government in Austria had rebuilt the Staatsoper in Vienna after the war, even though it was bankrupt. The paper was persuasive, well documented, and clearly stated in Southam’s inimitable style. Critics not on top of their “Ottawa game” found it impossible to refute. Despite her reputation as a populist, LaMarsh, with Prime Minister Pearson behind her, backed the orchestra plan.

Beaudet’s briefing paper to the trustees set out a time-table for the creation of this “national orchestra.” When the board’s Executive Committee met once again in September, members finally faced the music. Although Southam’s memo to the minister and its fulsome references to kings and princes had made some of the trustees nervous— “after all we are living a democracy”—the committee finally grappled with the arguments that favoured the orchestra’s creation.¹⁶ In a carefully drafted memorandum, dated September 18, 1967, the recommendation went forward to proceed with a forty-five-member orchestra. At the October meetings, the full board endorsed the plan and sent it on to the minister for Cabinet approval.

This decision became the seminal moment in the creation of the NAC Orchestra. It went on to become, in the later words of one critic, “not merely the best orchestra in Canada but easily one of the best of its kind in the world.”¹⁷ Southam had set out to get the best advice he could from some of Canada’s finest arts professionals—Arnold Walter, Louis Applebaum, and Jean-Marie Beaudet—and he relied heavily on Peter Dwyer of the Canada Council for wisdom and insight. Southam’s own ability to listen, his capacity to see an overall vision, and his connections to key people in politics and in the bureaucracy allowed him to push forward one of the great success stories of Canadian arts and culture. By the end of October 1967 the orchestra had been approved by Cabinet, and the next target was to get it up and playing.

Southam was in his element that Centennial summer as he travelled back and forth to Montreal to savour the artistic treasures on offer at Expo: the Swedish Opera, a glorious La Scala production of La Bohème directed by Franco Zefferelli, and lavish lunches and dinners with the “notables” of the cultural scene from all over the world. His diary jottings made careful notes of everything that might have potential for the Arts Centre in Ottawa, and he forged several new friendships with international impresarios, including Albert Sarfati, a Tunisian-born French citizen who was responsible for bringing many of the great European orchestra, dance, and theatrical companies to Expo. He also cultivated an earlier friendship with Lord Harewood,* who had been the director of the Edinburgh Festival and had since taken over the English National Opera. Southam’s dream was to bring not only the best work in Canada to the National Arts Centre but also the best from the international scene. His premise was simple: that exposure to the very best would inspire and develop the arts in Canada. It was a formula that had worked for him. Excellence meant Europe and not the United States, and he would start to work immediately with these two leading arts figures to plan for the 1970 Festival and the NAC’s future. Despite all these exuberant plans, the date of the centre’s opening still remained uncertain as just the latest in a string of delays—a steel strike—once again slowed down construction.

The orchestra might be launched to the satisfaction of all at the Arts Centre, but there was no similar enthusiasm or agreement in the theatre department. Rather, the quarrels and frustrations of the next few years seemed to fulfill playwright Wole Soyinka’s observation that “the most interesting aspects of a play are the actual goings-on behind the scenes, which vary from the hilarious to the tragic.”¹⁸ To begin with, the discussions with the Stratford Festival over a possible agreement that would make Ottawa the winter home for the company were still contentious. Stratford’s artistic personnel were unhappy with the idea.¹⁹ Although the director, Michael Langham, had originally supported this scheme, he had later decided that he didn’t want the company to go to Ottawa. Rather, he said, it should locate in Montreal, nearer to the National Theatre School. Nevertheless, a formal agreement was signed between the two parties calling for “joint activities” on at least two Shakespearean plays to be performed during the winter season in Ottawa, along with other classics. A joint planning committee of the two professional staffs was established to hammer out the details.

Despite Jean Gascon’s leadership on the theatre advisory committee, Southam was having little luck in attracting anyone from Quebec to head up a French theatre company.²⁰ Vincent Massey had long ago stressed that Canadian sovereignty was at heart a cultural matter, and ideological stirrings in Quebec with the rise of the Quiet Revolution meant that culture there was already developing its Quebec nationalist streak. Quebec theatre was in an exciting ferment, and its leading practitioners were loath to leave Montreal at this time for the outpost of Canada’s capital.

On a hot mid-August day in 1967, Southam travelled to Montreal’s Dorval Airport to meet with Quebec’s leading theatre directors in an effort to resolve the matter. In a private room at the busy airport, he told them in his elegant Parisian French that he was getting nowhere in terms of establishing a French theatre company at the Arts Centre and asked them what he should do. For all his formal airs, Southam always seemed able to strike a chord with artists when he engaged with them, and the luminaries gathered there that day, who, besides Gascon, included Yvette Brind’amour from the Rideau Vert, Jean-Louis Roux, the artistic director at Le Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, and others, considered his question seriously. Although Roux claims to have been tempted,²¹ he decided he would prefer to stay in Montreal.

Finally, the group came up with the name of a lesser light in Montreal theatre, a director by the name of Jean-Guy Sabourin. He was seen as “a small fish” who, to the disdain of some, ran only a semi-professional company. He was, however, deeply interested in the role theatre could play in society and its potential for effecting change. He was fascinated by the emerging theories in France for the “democratization of the arts,” which were focused on establishing local maisons de culture, designed to mix professional artists with the local populace to work together in communities.²² Schooled on the old-fashioned traditions of the Comédie Française, Southam seems to have missed the implications of this thinking and, on the theatre group’s advice, he interviewed Sabourin and hired him. The Quebec director joined the NAC staff in October 1967. Soon after he left for France for several months, at the centre’s expense, to study the new French methods and to plan his new theatre company and his first season.

Prime Minister Lester Pearson, with communications officer Philippe Paquet and Hamilton Southam, seemed to be thanking the gods as the NAC building neared completion. Photo © John Evans.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Pearson was keeping a close eye on proceedings at the National Arts Centre, and in December he met again with Freiman and Southam. He seemed interested in the creation of the resident companies and indicated that he agreed with the long-term financial plans that had been submitted, although he cautioned that the organization would have to live within its proposed budget, especially for Year One.²³ This stricture would soon present problems in the ongoing negotiations with the Stratford Festival. The two companies had different perceptions of the plan they were discussing: the Arts Centre expected Stratford to form its English theatre company with a nucleus of its actors, but Stratford wanted to keep its whole company of forty-five actors intact during the winter. The centre had approved $600,000 for English theatre and $400,000 for French theatre, but Stratford’s plans alone carried a price tag of $1.5 million. The horse-trading continued between the two organizations throughout the spring of 1968. One new distraction had appeared on the scene: theatre director Mavor Moore had begun to lobby to have some Stratford productions in his winter season at the St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto, where he was now director.

The date of the opening of the National Arts Centre was still unsettled, but non-stop budget discussions continued among management, the board, and the government. It was becoming evident that the government would grant only $2.5 million for the 1969–70 opening year, so Bruce Corder advised that they delay taking over responsibility for the building for as long as possible to save money on its running costs. Most worrying of all, nothing had been said about the additional million dollars intended for the annual Summer Festival, and Southam urged the trustees not to forget to ask for it. Freiman wanted to nail down the funds for the Arts Centre’s basic requirements before asking for more, so he resisted Southam’s plan. The friction between the two men only increased when Freiman insisted on managing the issue on his own with the politicians.

Despite these pesky frustrations, Southam moved ahead enthusiastically with his Festival plans. His vision called for a celebration of both Anglo-Saxon and French culture in North America, so he issued invitations to theatre and opera companies in France and in England and put his friends Lord Harewood and Albert Sarfati on the payroll as consultants. It was to be a grand festival indeed. Among the tentative invitees were the Comédie Française and the Orchestre de Paris, Great Britain’s National Theatre, ballet companies from Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden, and several other national companies from both France and England. Harewood’s contract called for up to $7,000 in consulting fees plus his expenses, and both men were due to arrive in Ottawa in May to firm up the Festival schedule. Meanwhile, Southam continued to pursue his government contacts, calling on Treasury Board president Edgar Benson, who was “sympathetic,” to champion the matter in Cabinet “within a few weeks.”²⁴ But no money for the Festival would be forthcoming and, in August, the board at last insisted that Southam postpone the event until the 1972 or even the 1973 summer season. Write-off fees were discussed for the two high-priced foreign consultants, but there is no record of any payment being made. In the end, Sarfati would have seven years of valuable work with the NAC, supplying it with European companies and performers through his agency, and, in return, he would import some of the NAC productions to Europe. Harewood would later be paid by the Canada Council to prepare a report on Canadian opera.

With the opening now barely a year away, the pace of work quickened at the Arts Centre. The talented programmer David Haber had arrived from Montreal. In Haber, Southam had found a gem, and the intense bespectacled young man soon covered the walls of his small office with vast charts of the future schedule that would present artists of all types in the coming seasons—from the world’s favourite pop singers to the most esoteric cutting-edge dance troupes. Haber’s incomparable contacts ensured that much of “the best of the best” would be seen at the Arts Centre in the next few years.

The dedicated genius of David Haber, the programming director as the NAC got under way, kept all three halls filled with exciting and innovative work. Photo © Studio Graetz.

*Later, the truck was lent out to some other provincial ventures before it was mothballed.

*Harewood became a close friend, serving as godfather to Southam’s daughter from his second marriage—to Gro Southam.