Opera Scotland

Intermezzo returns to Scotland

Posted 28 Mar 2011

Scottish Opera's fresh new production of Strauss's opera is warmly welcomed. The director Wolfgang Quetes and his team have set it at the time of composition, in 1924. The calibre of the opera is still underestimated in some quarters, the composer's previous operatic works having attracted more attention.  Indeed, the first UK performances were not till September 1965, being given by the Bavarian State Opera at the Edinburgh Festival, and so Intermezzo belongs to that select group of operas whose first UK perfomances were given in Scotland. If we exclude those actually commissioned for first performance here, the others are a mixed bunch including for example Rake's Progress and Bliss (Edinburgh International Festival), Una Cosa Rara (Ledlanet Nights), Idomeneo and Les Troyens (Glasgow Grand Opera). And of course Edinburgh Grand Opera are soon to give the first UK performance of Federico Ricci's Imprisoned in Edinburgh (La Prigione di Edimburgo), to be repeated at the Fringe. Check our website for listings.