Opera Scotland

Cenerentola 1971Scottish Opera for All

Read more about the opera Cenerentola

This small-scale piano-accompanied production for Opera For All  was mounted by Scottish Opera by the same direction & design team responsible for the existing Traviata and Martha, as well as the recently-retired Don Pasquale. Perhaps more important, they had recently mounted the company's full-scale Traviata, and were working simultaneously on Scottish Opera's first full-scale staging of The Barber of Seville. A further challenge was the fact that the Edinburgh Festival, only a few weeks away, had scheduled five performances (and a recording) of the new Ponnelle staging with Teresa Berganza and the LSO conducted by Claudio Abbado.

This production had opened in October 1970, touring with revivals of Traviata and Martha, then went on tour during the winter of 1971/72 in tandem with two shows intended to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott - Lucia di Lammermoor and The Fair Maid of Perth.

The 1971 spring tour itinerary ended: 27 & 30 Jun, 2 Jul (Ledlanet). Earlier dates to be confirmed.

The ten performances on the autumn tour were: 22 Oct (Largs), 27 Oct (Kilmarnock), 3 Nov (Linlithgow), 12 Nov (Thurso), 15 Nov (Dornoch), 17 Nov (Dingwall), 19 Nov (Grantown-on-Spey), 26 Nov (Beith), 27 Nov (Crieff), 24 Dec (Glasgow).

A further eight performances were given between mid-January and early March 1972.

Cast details are from our copy of the programme for Ledlanet. The autumn tour itinerary is from the Richard Telfer archive in Scottish Opera's collection.

The Ledlanet summer season included a week-long residency by Scottish Opera for All - piano-accompanied stagings of La traviata, Martha and Cinderella, as well as Ledlanet's own production of Telemann's Pimpinone coupled with Monteverdi's Ballo delle Ingrate. There was also an oratorio performance - Haydn's Creation. The Autumn schedule included another double bill - Pergolesi's Serva Padrona paired with Dido and Aeneas.