Opera Scotland

Fledermaus 2006Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Fledermaus

The 2006/07 season of Scottish Opera showed the company gradually recovering from the disastrous financial collapse that had led to the shut-down in 2005. The Edinburgh Festival featured a new work by Stuart MacRae and Simon Armitage called The Assassin Tree. This was a co-production with Covent Garden. The season proper consisted of four full scale productions. The new staging in the autumn was Handel's Tamerlano, with Lucia di Lammermoor in the spring. The two revivals were of successful McVicar stagings - Der Rosenkavalier in the autumn, with Madama Butterfly to follow. A small-scale tour saw a first attempt at producing Viennese operetta in this manner. Die Fledermaus had a nineteen-stop tour with piano accompaniment in the autumn, to be followed in spring by a ten-night revival with small orchestra. The spring also saw the regular tour of operatic scenes and arias - Essential Scottish Opera.

Scottish Opera's small-scale touring arm had not attempted Fledermaus before - after all, the succession of waltzes appears to need an orchestra to project them, and the party scene is likely to look a bit threadbare with only eight singers available. Never mind. This cheerful staging got by on the verve with which singers and pianist projected their roles. It may not have been subtle, in its modern almost clichéd grunge style of appearance, but it was great fun, and very well sung by a team of outstanding young talents.