Opera Scotland

Don Giovanni 1976Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Don Giovanni

For the third year, a popular opera went on a successful medium-scale tour. In this case the choice fell on Don Giovanni in the vintage sets by Ralph Koltai. These had already been used the previous autumn for a revival by David Pountney in the Glasgow Theatre Royal. and more dates followed immediately after the medium tour, when the repertoire included Die Fledermaus, Ariadne on Naxos, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Rape of Lucretia.

The main scale performances were in Italian, while this medium-scale tour, directed by Jeremy Sutcliffe, was in English. The young Irish mezzo Ann Murray, New Zealand tenor Richard Greager and English baritone Arthur Jackson must at the very least have found life interesting, since they sang in both productions. Malcolm Donnelly also got a look in, singing in Italian for the final performance of the main tour on 2 June. Presumably several of these singers would also have been covering for the main team.

A further advantage of the double casting on such a tour was the ready availability of cover, so when Patricia Reakes had to drop out of the second Dundee performance on 23 March, Lola Biagioni was on the spot and able to slot in. It is always instructive to look back at chorus listings to see the names of young singers who rose to prominence later on. In the case of this medium scale Don Giovanni, the names of Janice Cairns, Marie Slorach and Linda Ormiston stand out. Slorach also sang a single performance of Zerlina in the Italian-language tour on 2 June.