Opera Scotland

Otello 1977Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Otello

Scottish Opera's third winter season at the Theatre Royal (1977-78) opened with Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots, premiered a few weeks earlier at the Edinburgh Festival. It was followed by Fidelio, Otello, Ariadne on Naxos, The Golden Cockerel, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Falstaff, The Marriage of Figaro (launched earlier in the year), Madama Butterfly and The Bartered Bride - this last being the only completely new production.

This Otello was the final run of the memorable staging that launched Scottish Opera’s chorus in 1963. The cast was excellent, as usual, but there was one perceived weakness in this revival, arising from the non-availability of the SNO when its own concert season was in full swing. The BBC Scottish is nowadays a wonderful band of international stature. But in the seventies it was very much the poor relation, and its level of funding was far from generous. Indeed it was rumoured to have been very lucky to survive at all, when cuts were being made within the BBC. However, despite the infrequency of its appearances in a theatre pit, the performance could still make sparks fly when required.