Opera Scotland

Carmen 1951Covent Garden Opera

Read more about the opera Carmen

The Covent Garden Opera's spring 1951 tour took in only two venues over four weeks - the Edinburgh Empire from the fifth to the seventeenth March and the Manchester Palace from the nineteenth to the thirty-first.

The Edinburgh programme was as follows:

First week: Mon Lohengrin; Tue Rigoletto; Wed Fidelio; Thu Carmen; Fri Traviata; Sat mat Butterfly; Sat eve Figaro.

Second weel: Mon Figaro; Tue Lohengrin; Wed Carmen; Thu Rigoletto; Fri Butterfly; Sat mat Traviata; Sat eve Rosenkavalier.

Edgar Evans had an important career as a leading tenor at Covent Garden, and was now at his peak, though he continued to sing character parts to an advanced age. Sir Geraint Evans was being given major roles by the company that would remain his base for the next quarter-century during which he sang all over the world. Constance Shacklock had an important though less extended operatic career, which saw her as one of the first British singers to appear as a guest at the Bolshoi. In the late fifties she joined the opening cast in the London run of The Sound of Music - playing the Mother Abbess, and therefore 'Climbing Ev'ry Mountain' eight times a week for around six years.

The cast is from a programme for 8 March in the NLS. This is duplicated in the Edinburgh Room collection at Edinburgh City Library, where there is also a copy of the programme for 14 March.