Opera Scotland

West Side Story 2019Edinburgh International Festival

Read more about the opera West Side Story

Over seventy years since its premiere, one of the very greatest Broadway musicals, West Side Story, has been very widely performed. However brilliant it was originally, the continued insistance on use of the authentic Jerome Robbins staging was beginning to be less attractive. This new version brought the Usher Hall to life, with the action spreading all through the auditorium.  The wonderfully versatile SCO slipped easily into Broadway jazz band mode. Even the conductor got involved, delivering Officer Krupke's few lines, and the large cast of young performers bubbled with enthusiasm - as did the packed audience. 

 

The 2019 Festival programme

The opera programme for the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival included two fully-staged productions. The Komische Opera, Berlin, last here in 2015, brought a staging by director Barrie Kosky of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Scottish Opera's contribution was the European premiere of the noted American compoer Missy Mazzoli's interpretation of Breaking the Waves, a distinctly bleak view of life in the Scottish Highlands, as depicted in the 1996 film by Lars von Trier.

The series of notable concert performances featured Götterdämmerung, bringing to a climax the Festival's four-year cycle of Wagner's Ring. A second Berlin company, the Deutsche Oper, led by its Scottish conductor, Donald Runnicles, brought Puccini's rare early Manon Lescaut featuring Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Iestyn Davies led the cast in a performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.

There was a rare and wonderful Elgar oratorio, the Kingdom, with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus joined by Martyn Brabbins and the Hallé. Even more unusual was the celebration of Leonard Bernstein's centenary - a concert presentation by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra of his great musical West Side Siory.  In addition, the opening concert brought the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel in Mahler's titanic 'Resurrection' Symphony. And the Orchestre de Paris brought Britten's War Requiem.

Over seventy years since its premiere, one of the very greatest Broadway musicals, West Side Story, has been very widely performed. However brilliant it was originally, the continued insistance on use of the authentic Jerome Robbins staging was beginning to be less attractive. This new version brought the Usher Hall to life, with the action spreading all through the auditorium.  The wonderfully versatile SCO slipped easily into Broadway jazz band mode. Even the conductor got involved, delivering Officer Krupke's few lines, and the large cast of young performers bubbled with enthusiasm - as did the packed audience.