Opera Scotland

Werther 1986Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Werther

A good cast was assembled to revive Rhoda Levine's production from 1983, this time singing in English. Keith Warner made quite a few changes and tightened things up but the basic concept did not allow a great deal of scope for improvement. Kenneth Montgomery, a regular visitor on the old Sadler's Wells tours, was an excellent conductor who underlined the climaxes without overdoing them. John Treleaven and Rachel Gettler both sang well, but failed to bring the characters to life as their predecessors had done. Robert Dean and Rosa Mannion were near to the ideal as Sophie and Albert, and Bill McCue played the flustered parent with a suitably light touch.

 

Scottish Opera's Season 1985/86

Scottish Opera's 1985/86 season consisted of ten operas. The company's new productions ranged through Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro), Weber (Oberon), Verdi (Il trovatore), Offenbach (La Vie parisienne) and Weill (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny). The previous season's Orlando had further performances outside Glasgow, while the revivals were The Magic Flute, Werther, Tosca and The Turn of the Screw.  For Christmas there was a revival of Fiddler on the Roof.  In the spring there was a medium-scale tour of Tales of Hoffmann. The small-scall Opera-Go-Round tour in the autumn took the form of a new (and very different) staging of Tosca.