Opera Scotland

Silken Ladder 1984Scottish Opera

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If anything, The Silken Ladder was a more charming piece than The Marriage Contract, which had formed the first half of the double bill, though knowledge of the respective overtures might have led to the opposite expectation. The French-style farce was appropriately set in the 1890s Paris that would have been entirely familiar to Feydeau.

The combination worked very well, setting a highly satisfactory standard for medium scale tours. Regrettably, as the company's financial situation became more serious, provincial touring fell a victim to the cuts, so the opportunity could not be exploited.

 

Scottish Opera's Season 1983/84

Scottish Opera's 1983/84 season at the Theatre Royal opened with a new Death in Venice, followed before Christmas by Idomeneo (also new), and revivals of The Golden Cockerel and Hansel and Gretel. In the New Year, the season continued with revivals of L'elisir d'amore, La bohème and L'Egisto, before a final new production, Turandot, opened. There was also a short tour of the medium-scale theatres with a double bill of early one-act farces by Rossini, The Marriage Contract and The Silken Ladder. The autumn saw a further handful of performances of the recent Jonathan Miller Magic Flute, while the second half of December featured a two-week run of a musical, My Fair Lady.