Introduction
Moran Caplat (born 1916) was an English actor and opera administrator.
Life, education, and career
Caplat was born on October 1st, 1916, in Herne Bay, Kent, England, to a French father and an English mother. He attended Herne Bay College.
In 1933 he enrolled in Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, England, where he got a chance to play the Lion in "Androcles and the Lion" in front of the author, George Bernard Shaw. He toured with Matheson Lang and appeared in a film of the life of Edward Whymper, the great mountaineer. In 1938, he acted in Stephen Spender's first play, "Trial of a Judge," at the Unity Theatre in London, and played the Dauphin in a film about Napoleon and Josephine, A Royal Divorce (1938).
Caplat was also a keen yachtsman and in 1938, he took part in races such as those to Fastnet and La Rochelle, joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Supplementary.
In 1945, Caplat took the Assistant Manager job at the opera house Glyndebourne, which was built in 1934 by John Christie, for his wife, Audrey Mildmay, a singer. Caplat became the assistant manager to the then-manager, Rudolf Bing. The opera house at the time was run by the conductor Fritz Busch and the director Carl Ebert, both refugees from Nazi Germany.
Caplat was promoted to Manager when Bing left Glyndebourne in 1947. After two years, in 1949, he became the General Manager for the opera house. From 1949 until his retirement in 1981, he oversaw the management and operations at Glyndebourne and turned it into one of the most prestigious musical happenings in Europe.
He married to Diana Murray Downton, in 1943. They had a son and two daughters.
Caplat died of natural causes on 19 June 2003 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.