Opera Scotland

Lustige Witwe 2004Carl Rosa Company (est 1998)

Read more about the opera Merry Widow

The new Carl Rosa organization performed a completely different sector of the repertoire from the original company. For the most part it presented Gilbert and Sullivan, in stagings such as The Mikado which recreated the visual style of the original productions. Viennese operetta was therefore a departure from the usual field, but The Merry Widow was very welcome, not having appeared in Scotland for many years. This staging was extremely successful, with a witty new translation by Jeremy Sams, simple but elegant designs by Hugh Durrant and a reduced orchestration (arranged by Richard Balcombe) in the safe hands of Martin Handley. Furthermore, the cast skilfully blended performers from different traditions, in such a way that the joins were invisible. Thus young operatic performers such as Victoria Joyce and David Curry performed seamlessly with established musical artists such as Jan Hartley and Gay Soper. It was also nice to see the veteran Victor Spinetti making a rare appearance in Scotland at the end of his career.