Opera Scotland

Tosca 1986Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Tosca

Some decades further on, it is hard to remember the sense of shock aroused by the successful Anthony Besch update of Tosca to the Mussolini era. At the time, no-one had done it before. This third run showed how well a supposedly routine revival could work. Alexander Gibson was always a superb conductor of Puccini, with a natural sense of pacing, and continued to take charge of revivals until his death.

Seppo Ruohonen was the original Cavaradossi, while the Russian Tosca and Welsh Scarpia were unknown to Scottish Opera audiences. Both gave excellent performances, but were not seen again in what was considered a classic production.

 

Scottish Opera's Season 1985/86

Scottish Opera's 1985/86 season consisted of ten operas. The company's new productions ranged through Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro), Weber (Oberon), Verdi (Il trovatore), Offenbach (La Vie parisienne) and Weill (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny). The previous season's Orlando had further performances outside Glasgow, while the revivals were The Magic Flute, Werther, Tosca and The Turn of the Screw.  For Christmas there was a revival of Fiddler on the Roof.  In the spring there was a medium-scale tour of Tales of Hoffmann. The small-scall Opera-Go-Round tour in the autumn took the form of a new (and very different) staging of Tosca.