Jilly Cooper - Score!

The result, fourteen years later, is Score! : the subject no longer a calendar shoot but the filming of Verdi’s darkest opera, Don Carlos , with the resultant tensions leading to murder. Only when I had embarked on the story did I realize that in addition to filming and recording I would need to research opera and the ways of singers as well as the infinitely complicated police procedure of solving a murder. This consequently means a huge number of people to thank for their help. Singers, and those who work with them, seem to have particularly large and generous hearts.

On the filming front, I must start by thanking my dear friend Adrian Rowbotham, an independent director, who not only talked to me for hours, but later nobly ploughed through the manuscript for errors. I am also eternally grateful to the charismatic Peter Maniura of BBC Television, who was brilliant on directing the film of Dido and Aeneas , and the ebullient Mick Csaky of Antelope Films, who rolled up to lunch with a complete and marvellously funny brief on how to fund the film of an opera. Mick also introduced me to the divine soprano Susan Daniel, who over many meetings shared her singing experiences, particularly of starring in the film of Carmen with Placido Domingo.

Brilliant filming advice was given me by Ray Marshall, Chloë and David Hargreaves and Alison Sterling of Fat Chance Productions, Alan Kaupe, Clifford Haydn-Tovey, James Swann, Nick Handel, Bill and Susannah Franklyn and, in particular, Irving Teitelbaum and Rob Knights, who allowed me to range freely on the set of Mosley , the excellent series they produced and directed for ITV. During this time I had terrific conversations with actors Jonathan Cake, Jemma Redgrave and Roger May, as well as Chris O’Dell, the director of photography, Rudi Buckle, sound, Charlotte Walter, wardrobe, Heather Storr, continuity, Shelagh Pymm, publicity, Patricia Kirkman, make-up, and an ace caterer called Melanie.

My heroine in Score! is a make-up girl, always the still centre of any shoot, so I would therefore especially like to thank all the make-up artists over the years who soothed and transformed me, as well as beguiling me with anecdotes. They include Maggie Hunt, Valerie Macdonald, Jacqui Jefferies, Becky Challis, Rozelle Parry, Sally Holden, Clayton Howard, Juliette Mayer, Sarah Bee, Jenny Sharpe and Celia Hunter.

Several chapters in Score! are set in France. Here I am deeply indebted to star journalist Suzanne Lowry as well as my French publisher, Valérie-Anne Giscard d’Estaing, for thinking up glamorous names; Jonathan Eastwood for being brilliant on French law; Jill de Monpezat for kindly reading the French chapters for accuracy; Caterina Krucker for correcting my French; and my brother and sister-in-law, Timothy and Angela Sallitt, who lived for ten years in a stunning house in the Tarn, and who have been a constant source of information and inspiration.

On the music front, I am quite unable to express sufficient gratitude to Bill Holland, head of Polygram Classics and Jazz, easily the nicest and most generous man in the record business, who not only lent me numerous books and plied me with the relevant CDs, but also endlessly answered my questions, waded through the chapters on recording and finally produced a glorious double CD of the music featured in Score!

Bill also invited me to a miraculous production of Berg’s Lulu at Glyndebourne. Again I am extremely grateful to the then General Director Anthony Whitworth-Jones for letting me wander everywhere, and to Humphrey Burton and Sonia Lovett and their crew at NVC Arts, who were filming Lulu for Channel 4, for allowing me to attend production meetings and sit in the control room and beside the cameramen during the performance.

Going back to the seventies, I must thank my friend Guelda Waller for first taking me to Don Carlos at the Royal Opera House, thus igniting a passion, which has grown with the years. It was therefore a colossal thrill to be allowed to sit in on Phillips Classics recording sessions of Don Carlos in Walthamstow Assembly Rooms in 1996. I would especially like to thank the executive producer, Clive Bennett; the legendary Christopher Raeburn, who produced the record; the mighty Bernard Haitink; the sublime chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the beguiling language coach, Maria Cleva; the endearingly laid-back orchestra manager, Clifford Corbett; and the magnificent cast, including Richard Margison, Robert Lloyd, Galina Gorchakova, Robin Leggate and Roderick Williams. I also had particular help from Patricia Haitink, Jan Burnett, the co-ordinator, James Jones, in charge of publicity, and the PA James Ross, a rising young conductor, who talked to me for hours about the opera and made some excellent suggestions when the book was in synopsis stage.

My characters sing a lot in the book. I am therefore extremely grateful first to Theodore Lap and Hugh Graham and secondly to Avril Bardoni for permission to quote from their excellent English translations of the Don Carlos libretto, which in Hugh’s case was for the 1997 EMI recording conducted by Antonio Pappano, and in Avril’s for the programme when Don Carlos was performed at a 1997 Promenade concert.

I must thank Ingrid Kohlmeyer of English National Opera and Helen Anderson and Rita Grudzien of the Royal Opera House, who were constantly helpful. I am also indebted to Katherine Fitzherbert, who runs English Touring Opera, which brings such joy to music lovers around the country. Katherine allowed me to sit backstage with the DSM Helen Bunkall at a production of Rigoletto and work the lightning flashes. She also invited me to Werther followed by a riotous, end-of-tour party. Here I had the luck to meet the conductor Alistair Dawes, then Head of Music Staff at the Royal Opera House, and his wife Lesley-Ann, a singer and teacher, who have since become extremely close friends, letting me sit in on lessons, taking me through the Don Carlos score and answering endless questions.

Other singers who have given me wonderful advice include Susan Parry, Penelope Shaw, Andy Busher, Christine Botes, Joanna Colledge and John Hudson.

I must thank my musician friends, who sometimes have rather trenchant views on singers. They include Chris and Jacoba Gale, Ian Pillow, Diggory Seacome, Luke Strevens, Jack and Linn Rothstein, Lance Green, who thought up the title Score! , and his wife Justine, Richard Hewitt and Steena and Marat Bisengaliev.

I have also been royally entertained and enlightened on the subject of opera by dear Sir Ian Hunter, Nicholas Kenyon, Michael Volpe, George Humphreys and Paul Hughes.

As Don Carlos in my book is set in modern dress, I spent an utterly magical two hours recce-ing the state rooms at Buckingham Palace for ideas. This was kindly organized by Claire Zammitt. These rooms are only open to the public from early August to early October. My director in Score! , however, visits the rooms in early spring, which was the only time it could be fitted into the plot. I hope Her Majesty will forgive the poetic licence.

St Peter’s Grange, a beautiful fifteenth-century retreat nestling in the wooded grounds of Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, is the model for the abbey, around which filming and murder take place in Score! . I was very privileged to have Father Damien of Prinknash and Peter Clarkson to show me repeatedly over the house and garden and to answer endless questions on its dark and romantic history.

Score! is my first and almost certainly last whodunit. After battling with the complexities of murder, I rate the genius of Agatha Christie and P.D. James even higher than that of Einstein. I would have given up altogether had it not been for the kindness and co-operation of Gloucester and Stroud Police. No matter what hour I rang, no matter how fatuous the query, they entered into the spirit and never failed to provide an answer. Their only disagreement was whether the male member remains erect after the moment of death, Stroud maintaining it did, Gloucester it didn’t. Other police officers beguiled me with thrilling tales of murder and later waded through the manuscript for errors. They know who they are and the extent of my gratitude.