A new trial on the rights of Bolero by Ravel, a work composed in 1928, opened Wednesday at the judicial court of Nanterre, France. It opposes the rights holders of Maurice Ravel and the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (SACEM). The rights holders plead for the Bolero returns to the private domain until 2051.
THE Bolero by Ravel, a classical work among the most performed – if not the most performed – in the world, has been the subject of legal battles for many years. More and more astonishing battles, as much as the character of Évelyne Pen de Castel, the figurehead of these fights.
Because if, by “rights holders”, you imagine the granddaughter or great-granddaughter of Maurice Ravel, you are not there at all. Évelyne Pen de Castel is the daughter from a first marriage of Georgette Taverne, the second wife of Alexandre Taverne. This Alexandre Taverne is the ex-husband of the governess of Ravel’s brother, Édouard-Joseph Ravel.
A tortuous journey
Let’s summarize: Édouard-Joseph Ravel, heir in 1937 to his brother Maurice, was the victim of a road accident. After the death of his wife, it was his housekeeper and caregiver, Jeanne Taverne, who became his sole heir in 1960. Her heir was her husband, Alexandre Taverne, a barber and driver. Taverne remarries Georgette, the one who gave his wife manicures.
Georgette will survive Alexandre, and her daughter, Évelyne Pen de Castel, from a first marriage, will inherit from her mother in 2012, and therefore from Ravel.
As recalled in a Radio France article in November 2017, the Swiss resident declared to the weekly Point in 2007 that neither she nor her mother had “nothing to do with Ravel’s rights for a very long time”. But an investigation carried out by the French public broadcaster and its Paradise Papers partners, brought together by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), showed that Mme Pen de Castel was “at the head of a company registered in Amsterdam, Caconda Music Promotion Limited, which receives 90% of the royalties from Bolero » and that she had “created with her husband, in the spring of 2007, a Maltese company called Admira International Music Limited, one of the objects of which is the collection and management of musical rights”.
The situation gets a little confusing when we understand that part of the rights escaped this “channel” when, in the 1970s, a former legal director of SACEM, Jean-Jacques Lemoine, convinced the Taverne to take responsible for rights management and optimization.
Already at the time, the loot amounted to tens of millions of dollars. The inventive Lemoine then created a company in Vanuatu and campaigned successfully in France, in the 1980s, for the extension of rights from 50 to 70 years, plus the years of war (thus protecting the Bolero until 2016). He made his personal nest in Switzerland, then in Monaco, and notably created a foundation, Sancta Devota — one among a galaxy of companies that appeared during the investigations into the Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers, among others.
Le Boléro, a collaborative work?
If Lemoine has died since 2009, his successors cultivate an idea which emerged in 2005: to have the Bolero as a collaborative work. The idea is that the Russian painter Alexandre Benois would have participated in its design by proposing to make the Bolero in a tavern setting. The idea is brilliant: Benois died 23 years after Ravel. If the idea of “collaborative work” is retained, the rights, which run 70 years after the death of the last survivor, are extended accordingly.
Technically, the rights of Bolero have expired since 2016, except in North America (which represents more than 50% of the windfall), where they run until 2025.
But Évelyne Pen de Castel and the representatives of the Lemoine estate no longer stop at Benois: they demand a reinstatement of the Bolero in the private domain until 1er May 2051, now including in the design of the ballet Alexandre Benois, who died in 1960, for the sets and costumes, and Bronislava Nijinska, who died in 1972, for the choreography.
For the discerning palate, according to information published earlier this month by Le Figarothe name of Mme Nijinska is only put forward “for the cause” – so to speak – by the Pen de Castel camp. The choreographer’s Texas rights holders are in no way involved in the lawsuit, are not interested in it, are not registered with SACEM and have donated everything relating to her to the Library of Congress.
According to Le Figarothe stake concerns 20 million euros (approximately 29 million Canadian dollars), plus millions of euros claimed from SACEM in damages and compensation for the loss of income from the use of the Bolero in concerts, films and other advertisements since 2016.
The fact that the Bolero is played in concert halls and few ordinary people associate it with a ballet or with a setting will it play a role in the judgment which will be made on this score composed 96 years ago by a composer died 87 years ago? Are the provisions on copyright really intended to cover a work for 123 years for the benefit of third parties with no connection to the author? The judgment on these issues will be fascinating to read.