Opera Scotland

Makropulos Affair 1993Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Makropulos Affair

After a gap of a dozen years, the super Pountney production came back for its only revival. It really should have been seen far more often than that, but the Czech repertoire had rather fallen out of favour with management. Other titles - Vixen and Katya - perhaps seemed more obviously attractive, though Scottish Opera also had a great success with a gripping  From the House of the Dead.

John Mauceri certainly showed great enthusiasm for this piece and conducted a fierily dramatic account of the score. And the cast was as good as before, the only returnee being Donald Maxwell, who had graduated from Stagehand to Baron Prus.

Kathryn Harries gave a magnetic performance as Emilia, and Nigel Robson, an infrequent visitor to home turf, was on good form as Albert. Richard Berkeley-Steele, soon to take on leading Wagner roles, seemed odd casting for a character role, but also did very well. The young Australian bass-baritone Stephen Bennett completed his season as a guest with the company by giving further evidence of his versatility.

This spring tour by the company was remarkable - the routine revival was the final run of the excellent Pountney staging of Eugene Onegin. As well as this Makropulos revival, John Mauceri was also in charge of the superbly memorable new production of Norma,