Opera Scotland

Golden Cockerel 1983Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Golden Cockerel

Scottish Opera's 1983/84 season at the Theatre Royal opened with a new Death in Venice, followed before Christmas by Idomeneo (also new), and revivals of The Golden Cockerel and Hansel and Gretel. In the New Year, the season continued with revivals of L'elisir d'amore, La bohème and L'Egisto, before a final new production, Turandot, opened. There was also a short tour of the medium-scale theatres with a double bill of early one-act farces by Rossini, The Marriage Contract and The Silken Ladder. The autumn saw a further handful of performances of the recent Jonathan Miller Magic Flute, while the second half of December featured a two-week run of a musical, My Fair Lady.

This was the final run of what had almost become a traditional Christmas treat, with many regular cast members returning. The gloriously colourful designs were just as successful as before, and the singing was rightly dominated by John Winfield's eerily effective Astrologer.