Opera Scotland

Tales of Hoffmann 1986Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Tales of Hoffmann

For over a decade from 1974 Scottish Opera toured medium scale productions to smaller theatres. These were usually works by Mozart or Rossini, but Hoffmann was an exception. The version used on this eleven performance tour was adapted by Graham Vick in 1984 for English Touring Opera, with a reduced orchestration, for a band of 19 players, prepared by Simon Halsey. It worked well, even on the night when Patricia O'Neill was sick and the four female roles were taken by the soprano who had worked on that ETO staging two years before.

The question still needs to be asked - given that certain forces were available, could not one or two small pieces by Offenbach have been put on in something approximating to their original scale, instead of tinkering with a larger piece?

 

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.