Opera Scotland

Turandot 2014Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Turandot

Francesco Corti conducted quite a range of work during his years with Scottish Opera, though Verdi was conspicuously lacking.  By contrast, Puccini recurred on a regular basis.  Corti made his Scottish Opera debut conducting Butterfly and had also been in charge of Bohème and Tosca, plus a single concert performance of Fanciulla del West.  He now signed off his period of tenure with a single performance of Turandot for which an excellent cast was assembled.

Scottish Opera ha produced this difficult work twice before (in 1984 and 1996), but neither staging was good enough to be revived.  Given the amount of rehearsal necessary for orchestra and chorus, it is rather disappointing that only one performance was scheduled.

The cast included several favourite artists returning after long absences.  Claire Rutter began her career here, but had been singing elsewhere, with increasing success, for the past decade.  Sir Willard White had been away even longer, his last part for the company being Wotan over twenty years previously. He actually sang Timur here in that first production of 1984.

Returning to the company after a gap of thirty years, the veteran Welsh tenor Ryland Davies was now over seventy, but in recent years had continued to appear in brief character roles at the Met, Salzburg, Paris and la Scala, as w ell as Covent Garden and ENO.  A famously sensitive singing actor, his skill had not diminished with the years.  And lurking in the chorus was John Robertson, who had sung the old Emperor back in 1984, and was hardly a youngster then.

José Ferrero is a more recent recruit, having sung Cavaradossi as well as Pinkerton.  Young Aberdonian soprano Eleanor Dennis was the most notable complete newcomer in the wonderfully expressive role of Liù.