When he was fifteen he saw a touring production of Twelfth Night by the Ben Greet company which made him stage-struck, and in 1933 he was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London.
[4] After Caplat was released from the navy in 1945 a relative put him in touch with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, which was resuming productions after a wartime gap.
Christie retired in 1959, handing the running of the festival to his son George, whom Caplat guided in his early years in charge.
[2] Caplat arranged overseas performances of Glyndebourne productions: La Cenerentola in Berlin (1954), Falstaff and Le Comte Ory in Paris (1958); Don Giovanni and Il matrimonio segreto in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1967) and L'Ormindo in Munich (1969).
[1][5] Operas receiving their UK professional premieres in Caplat's time included Idomeneo (1951), The Rake's Progress (1953), La voix humaine (1960) and Intermezzo (1974).
Caplat encouraged the conductor Raymond Leppard to revive neglected early operas, and Glyndebourne gave the first British productions of L'incoronazione di Poppea (1962) L'Ormindo (1967), La Calisto (1970) and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1972).
[7] He brought in leading British designers, including Hugh Casson, Leslie Hurry, Osbert Lancaster, Oliver Messel and John Piper.