Opera Scotland

Tristan und Isolde 1994Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Tristan and Isolde

Over twenty years since its first staging, it was high time for Scottish Opera to mount Tristan again, this time borrowing Welsh National's recent successful production.  This was a simple staging based on the idea of a large picture frame on the stage, with the action bursting out in front of it at appropriately dramatic moments. Not only was Anne Evans making her company debut, but she was returning to Scotland for the first time since her early days on the Sadler's Wells tour.  The rest of the cast was also on a very high, dramatically committed, level - Jeffrey Lawton's excellent Tristan also marking his company debut. Kathryn Harries was a wonderfully tense and controlled Brangäne. Richard Armstrong had not conducted Tristan during his years in Wales, though he had been able to benefit from the presence of Reginald Goodall being in charge of that previous Welsh staging, with the result that his own reading had a wonderfully spacious and lyrical quality.

Edinburgh performances benefited hugely from the company's first visit to the newly restored Festival (formerly Empire) Theatre - a large, yet intimate, traditional auditorium. The production was also given a couple of performances on a brief visit to Lisbon - a larger-scale enterprise than the company's previous foreign tours.

In the autumn, a further group of four performances was given, one each in Glasgow and Newcastle, with two in Edinburgh. These had a new Isolde in the return of Carol Yahr, and the only appearances with Scottish Opera by the Australian mezzo Bernadette Cullen. Kurwenal featured a welcome return by another Australian, Malcolm Donnelly, who had spent many years with the company before his international career developed. Back in 1973 he was the Helmsman in Scottish Opera's first staging. Carsten Stabell and Kenneth Cox again shared the role of Mark.