Opera Scotland

Bohème 1929Edinburgh Opera Company

Read more about the opera Bohème

This week-long season of opera by the enterprising Edinburgh group shows very unusual choice of repertoire. The week was framed by two performances of La bohème, a common enough work.

On this occasion, Rodolfo was sung by the internationally-renowned Edinburgh-born tenor Joseph Hislop, in his only operatic appearance in Scotland. On the Wednesday he appeared as Canio in Pagliacci, coupled with Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. The remaining four performances during the week saw the first performances of The Bride of Dionysus, the only opera composed by Sir Donald Tovey, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University.

The performances featured another Scottish professional singer, in the form of Carl Rosa soprano Helen Ogilvie as Mimì. The conductor for both Puccini and Leoncavallo was none other than John Barbirolli. One feature that seems unusual to us today, though it was a common-enough practice at the time, was for all the singing to be in English except for the fact that Hislop sang in Italian.

Data is from a framed display in the foyer of the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.