Opera Scotland

Cunning Little Vixen 1997Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Cunning Little Vixen

For Scottish Opera, the great importance of the 1996-97 season is that it saw the premiere of Inés de Castro, the first full-length opera by James MacMillan. It had been over a decade since the company had last launched a new work - Harper's Hedda Gabler in 1985. The success of the opening at the Edinburgh Festival was deserved, and it was as well received during the main autumn season. That contained six other full-scale productions: Idomeneo, Trovatore, Bohème, Fledermaus, Samson and Delilah and Cunning Little Vixen. The Opera-Go-Round small-scale tour was an enjoyable staging of Così fan tutte. There was also a bonus in December, with an enjoyable series of concerts around the country under the title The Scottish Opera Collection.

DAvid Pountney produced what still seems the definitive interpretation of this work in 1980, when it was the outstanding event of that Edinburgh Festival. This revival was near ideal. The major change from the 1991 revival was the reversion to a male fox, after experimenting with the soprano edition. Certainly this one worked well, with Rebecca Evans and Neill Archer getting excellent support from an excellent new team. Direction was safe in the hands of Stuart Hopps, who had devised the vital movement for the original show.