Opera Scotland

Tristan and Isolde 1905Carl Rosa Opera Company

Read more about the opera Tristan and Isolde

Cast details are extracted from the review in the Glasgow Herald (5 April).

The review opened "The rather small attendance in the Grand Theatre last night at the Carl Rosa performance of Wagner's Tristan can hardly be regarded as a sign that Glasgow amateurs have now had enough of opera.  The work itself is probably too advanced for our average music-lover, who after having satisfied his curiosity at the recent performance of the Moody-Manners Company, will be content to take a short rest before hearing the involved music again.  lat night's rendering, however, was well worth turning out to hear; indeed, it was, in many respects, the best performance that has yet been given in Glasgow.  A work like Tristan makes demands which are not easily met by a touring opera company."

"The band, under Mr Eugene Goossens, is, we suppose, drawn from many sources, and up till a short time ago had little or no practice in playing as a combination.  A week's hard work, however, has done much for them, and last night they gave, considering their limitations, a surprisingly good account of the complicated score.  The bass-clarinet, associated so touchingly with the grief of King Mark, the cor anglais of the shepherd boy, and the other wood winds which wail of a love-sickness almost unto death, were in the hands of artists.  Of course, to those who know the score, the weakness of the strings at climaxes, at inner themes or where divided, could not be ignored.  But even if their number were not great, the players rose to the occasion, and gave their best."

"Perhaps the high quality of the stage performance inspired the band.  Miss Winifred Ludlam, who was the Isolda of the cast, created a most favourable impression,  She has a full, penetrating voice - the first qualification for a Wagnerian singer - and she moves in her part with assurance and ease.   Her isolda lacked nothing in intensity.  The hysterical xxx of the first act was as cleverly reflected as were the later ecstacies of love and grief.  Miss Ludlam was well seconded by Herr Julius Walther as Tritan.. As the dignified, reserved Lohengrin, who moves among excitement as one superior to it, Herr Walther was perhaps not revealed at his very best.  But in situation in which passion rises in long crescendos to stupendous climaxes, and in which actor and singer are completely merged in one another, he strikes one more convincingly.  Like Miss Ludlam, he knew his role convincingly, and quite succeeded in interesting the audience."

"The roles of Brangane, Kurwenal and King Mark were capably filled, by Miss Marie Alexander, Herr Charles Victor and Mr Arthur Winckworth respectively, the gentlemen being specially good, and the smaller parts were also in excellent hands.  A word might be said about the more than usually effective stage actions of the piece.  The love action of the second act was sung in a garden, as worthy of it, as wood, canvas and paint could make it."

On this return to Scotland after an absence of a few years, Carl Rosa Opera's  performances were as follows:-

Week 1, comm 27 Mar: Mon Tannhäuser; Tue Don Giovanni; Wed Faust; Thu Lohengrin; Fri Rigoletto; Sat m Cav & Pag; Sat e Maritana.

Week 2, comm 3 Apr: Mon Faust; Tue Tristan and Isolde; Wed Rigoletto; Thu Tannhäuser; Fri Marriage of Figaro; Sat m Don Giovanni; Sat e Carmen.