Opera Scotland

Fanciulla del West 1911Quinlan Opera Company

Read more about the opera Girl of the Golden West

The first performances in Scotland of Puccini's western took place almost exactly a year after its premiere at the New York Met.

Casts are from a programme in the National Library of Scotland (for Edinburgh), with advertised variants for the Glasgow opening.

 

Quinlan Opera Company Preview

Glasgow Herald:  Wednesday, 23 March 1911  (p9)

Opera in Glasgow - Quinlan Opera Company

'Musical amateurs are always interested in new operatic enterprises, if only for the opportunities they provide for pessimistic prophecy.    The latest proposals come from Mr Thomas Quinlan, who has been so closely identified with the well-known Beecham Opera Company.  Mr Quinlan has organised a new company, on generous lines and announces performances beginning at Liverpool on October 2.  Glasgow will be reached on November 27, when a fortnight's visit will be made to the Theatre Royal.  Other towns included are Newcastle-on-Tyne,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  Leeds and Edinburgh,  and at the close of the British tour Mr Quinlan intends to set out for South Africa and Australia.

'The importance of the scheme will be gathered from the fact that  #the repertory contains such works as Carmen,  Faust,  Madame Butterfly,  La Bohème,    Tales of Hoffmann,  Aïda,  Tristan and Isolde,  Lohengrin,  The Valkyrie,  L'Enfant Prodigue,  Tannhäuser,  Hansel and Gretel, and The Girl of the Golden West.  The last named is, of course, the new Puccini opera recently produced at New York.

'There will be an orchestra of 55 performers;  the conductors are Mr Cuthbert Hawley and Signor Voghera; and the list of soloists includes the names of Miss Evelyn Parnell,  Bettina Freeman,  Edna Thornton;  and Muriel Terry;  and Messrs John Coates,  John Harrison,  Bindon Ayres,  Allen Hincklry,  Charles M'Grath,  Harry Dearth, and Clarence Whitehill.'