Opera Scotland

Hérodiade 1990Edinburgh Grand Opera

Read more about the opera Hérodiade

In an ideal world, the amateur companies would do rarities like this all the time. Around this period, Edinburgh Grand were thriving and putting on operas such as La Gioconda, William Tell and Prince Igor. But they also need to do the popular classics in order to generate the funds to keep them going, and there is a limit to the risk taking that they can do, at least in terms of a full-scale production such as this one - a particularly apposite choice given that Scottish Opera had the Strauss Salome in its repertoire at the time. And it was not the first occasion that the company had performed the work, having given Massenet's rarity its Scottish première in 1931.

Christopher Bell's subsequent career has seen him concentrate on the direction of choruses and youth choirs, and doing work to an international standard. It is worth remembering that he could also have been an excellent operatic conductor. Notice also that Frances McCafferty was in the cast several seasons before her career took off in London and elsewhere.