Opera Scotland

Midsummer Night's Dream 1980Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Midsummer Night's Dream

This 1980 revival of the Dream consisted of a single performance at the Perth Festival, where the staging was already familiar, followed by a brief tour to Switzerland. A single performance in Basel was followed by two in Lausanne, which alternated with two performances of Peter Ebert's production of Gluck's Orfeo.  Many of the cast had appeared in the most recent revival in January 1979, when the much-travelled production had appeared at the Theatre Royal for the first time.

The cast shown is for the Perth evening, when Cynthia Buchan came in as a late replacement for Linda Ormiston. Which of the ladies performed in Switzerland is to be confirmed. Otherwise the cast is an established one - indeed the mechanicals, with the exception of Alexander Oliver's Flute, had been with the production since its 1972 opening, and James Bowman had also been in most of the previous performances, which had all been conducted, with increasing mastery, by Roderick Brydon. Ewan Stewart was yet another example, following Tim Curry and Jonathan Hyde, of a promising young actor being chosen for the role of Puck.