Opera Scotland

Masked Ball 1965Sadler's Wells Opera

Read more about the opera Ballo in maschera

The spring 1965 tour by Sadler's Wells was restricted to a week each in Edinburgh and Glasgow (unusually playing at the Alhambra). The repertoire, in addition to this new Ballo, included Faust, Cinderella, La belle Hélène and Seraglio (only in Edinburgh, as Glasgow had seen it the year before), with Glasgow getting a single performance, the only one ever in Scotland, of the successful new piece by Richard Rodney Bennett, The Mines of Sulphur.

This new staging of Un ballo in maschera opened on 27 January 1965, and survived the 1968 move to the Coliseum. But it probably worked better in the more intimate theatres visited on tour. It continued to be seen for a decade, generally well cast, and last appeared on tour in 1975. This team certainly shows quality, though the soprano and mezzo playing Oscar and Arvidson did not stay with the company for long.

Cast details are from programmes in Edinburgh City Library and, for Glasgow, the OperaScotland archive.