Opera Scotland

Rosenkavalier 2006Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Rosenkavalier

The 2006/07 season of Scottish Opera showed the company gradually recovering from the disastrous financial collapse that had led to the shut-down in 2005. The Edinburgh Festival featured a new work by Stuart MacRae and Simon Armitage called The Assassin Tree. This was a co-production with Covent Garden. The season proper consisted of four full scale productions. The new staging in the autumn was Handel's Tamerlano, with Lucia di Lammermoor in the spring. The two revivals were of successful McVicar stagings - Der Rosenkavalier in the autumn, with Madama Butterfly to follow. A small-scale tour saw a first attempt at producing Viennese operetta in this manner. Die Fledermaus had a nineteen-stop tour with piano accompaniment in the autumn, to be followed in spring by a ten-night revival with small orchestra. The spring also saw the regular tour of operatic scenes and arias - Essential Scottish Opera.

The third Scottish run of David McVicar's 1999 staging of Rosenkavalier (also borrowed by Opera North and ENO) was every bit as satisfying as the previous two. This was Sarah Connolly's company and role debut so it was unfortunate that she was ill and dropped out after a handful of performances. Catriona Barr was a confident replacement, slipping into the ensemble with ease. The Marschallin and Ochs of Rebecca Nash and Daniel Sumegi were both excellent, but perhaps the outstanding contribution came from Lucy Crowe as a glorious Sophie.

And notice the veteran Claire Livingstone returning to an old role - she had previously sung Third Orphan in the 1971 staging with Janet Baker, following that with Annina in the 1974 revival.