Opera Scotland

Étoile 1985Opéra de Lyon

Read more about the opera Étoile

The operatic contribution to the 1985 Edinburgh Festival was largely French in origin. At the King's John Eliot Gardiner displayed his Lyon company in two revelatory productions - a fresh look at Pelléas et Mélisande and an unknown delight in Chabrier's Etoile. We also enjoyed the first visit by William Chistie's company Les Arts Florissants, in a double-bill of unknown baroque pieces, by Rameau (Anacréon) and Charpentier (Actéon).

This was a wonderful evening of classic operetta, given a perfect staging that emphasised the subtlety of composition, conducted in peerless fashion by John Eliot Gardiner. Most of the cast that had created, and recorded, this memorable production remained, most vitally the delightful Colette Alliot-Lugaz as Lazuli. Georges Gautier was also perfectly cast as the King. Of the newcomers, the rotund Belgian bass Jules Bastin made a gleeful astrologer.

It is difficult to imagine any little-known piece being given such a good presentation as this, and the audience was rightly ecstatic from the moment when Ouf, disguised in trench coat and shades, clambered out of the dress circle stage box and down a ladder to begin his observations from the stage.