Opera Scotland

Doctor Miracle 2016Fox Opera

Read more about the opera Doctor Miracle

New opera company Fox Opera, launched to give opportunities to emerging artists, made an interesting choice for their first venture - a double bill of Bizet's rarely performed farce Dr Miracle, preceded by Mozart's Impresario. The Bizet was in English, while the Mozart had English dialogue and arias sung in German. The company features current students and alumni from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, including an excellent chamber orchestra.

This is an attractive piece, composed by Bizet when he was a student. The delightful overture does have echoes of his wonderful Symphony, composed around the same time, as well as hints of his L'Arlesienne music. Of Carmen or The Pearl Fishers, several years in the future, there is little evidence. This is the kind of frolic that Offenbach composed by the dozen, and that is presumably Bizet's model, though the style never sounded remotely like the master of operetta, who can sometimes sound a bit thin. There was a pleasant depth to the tone of the orchestration, skilfully brought out by Olivia Clarke.

This cast sang Bizet's attractive score with great accomplishment, and also handled the dialogue with idiomatic clarity. Klaudia Korzeniewska (Polish) and Svetlina Stoyanova (Bulgarian) are already familiar from several excellent performances at RCS and are developing nicely as singers and actors. Connor Smith revealed a pleasant lyric tenor and Will Frost a good wide-ranging baritone. All four handled the comedy with tact under the guidance of Paola Cuffolo.