Opera Scotland

Barbiere di Siviglia 1981Cologne Opera

Read more about the opera Barber of Seville

In 1981 it was a surprise when the Cologne Opera's return visit was announced, only a year after their first appearance in Edinburgh. But their chief conductor, Sir John Pritchard, had a connection going right back to the earliest years of the Festival. This time they brought another Mozart piece, Clemenza, the Rossini Barber, and a recent British piece, Musgrave's Voice of Ariadne, unjustly neglected since its Aldeburgh premiere. Scottish Opera provided a lively modernised treatment of Gay's Beggar's Opera, not admired by everyone. Perhaps the greatest delight of all came from a rare staging of Leonard Bernstein's bubbly operetta Candide. This was put on in the Assembly Hall by Clive Perry's Birmingham Rep company, alternating with As You Like It.

As with his staging of The Secret Marriage which the Cologne Opera brought to Edinburgh the year before, Michael Hampe showed an enjoyably light sense of style in this classic comedy. The team assembled worked well, with Alicia Nafe an excellent Rosina and Leo Nucci, in his only Festival visit, an effective Figaro. Luigi Alva was still a remarkable Almaviva, even though he had been sining the part for a quarter century.