Opera Scotland

Mahagonny 1986Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Mahagonny

Scottish Opera's first staging of a work by Kurt Weill had some extremely successful elements. David Alden had experienced great success with Rigoletto and Wozzeck, but failed with this work to find the same level of inspiration.  For example, Felicity Palmer played an (overlong) prologue in which she impersonated the prime minister of the day giving a cookery demonstration - amusing, inventive and well done, but distracting.  The designs were non-naturalistic, with much use of neon lighting, while costumes were almost cartoon-like.

American heldentenor Richard Cassilly, a regular at Covent Garden, was a welcome late recruit to the cast, making his first appearance with the company since his Grimes of 1968.

The withdrawal of the original conductor, Simon Rattle, was a disappointment, but his replacement Sian Edwards achieved a great success in conducting opera for the first time.

David Fielding's unconventional designs were rather challenging - from lots of neon lights to bulky costumes for the lumberjacks.

Despite its musical strengths, the production was not revived.

 

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.