Having revived the work with great success in 1891, it was hardly surprising that the Carl Rosa should offer further performances of this charming comedy. In the spring, the opening night in Edinburgh was cancelled because of Zélie de Lussan's illness. An extra performance of Cavalleria and an abbreviated Elixir of Love were substituted instead. The scheduled performance of Cav on the Tuesday (10 May) went ahead as planned.
One highlight of the company's autumn tour was a Command Performance before Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice at Balmoral. The success of this venture resulted in subsequent invitations to both Balmoral and Windsor, and the company was granted the title Royal in 1893.
This excursion caused an unfortunate disruption to the company's touring schedule. They were visiting Dundee, and, after a long and cold return train journey through the middle of the night, were in no condition to perform Aïda on the Wednesday evening. For public consumption, the replacement by Cavalleria and Act 2 of Maritana was the result of the Mascagni's great success on the Monday. And Zélie de Lussan's severe cold prevented her singing of the scheduled Donizetti at a Thursday matinée. This time Maritana was given complete. The company coped, but local audiences were undoubtedly inconvenienced, and seem to have felt rather short-changed, in spite of seeing first Scottish performances of both Djamileh and L'amico Fritz. They probably knew that the following Tuesday would see the Scottish premiere of Otello in Glasgow, for which de Lussan would be required as Desdemona.
Charles Hedmondt (Nov 8)
Rhys Thomas (Nov 19)
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