Opera Scotland

Bohème 2002Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Bohème

Scottish Opera's 2002-03 season was dominated by the continuation of its production by Tim Albery of The Ring. The third instalment, Siegfried, opened at the 2002 Festival, followed by performances in Glasgow, with Götterdämmerung scheduled for the Spring. Complete cycles were planned for the 2003 Edinburgh Festival and the opening of the main Glasgow autumn season.

The non-Wagner repertoire consisted of a revived Fledermaus and new Orfeo ed Euridice in the autumn, along with a medium-scale tour of La bohème. The new year saw a performances of Rigoletto, with The Magic Flute in the spring.

La Bohème is a popular work for reduction to small or medium-scale touring purposes, and Caroline Sharman's updated version went round the country with piano in the autumn of 2001 as a part of the long-running Opera Go Round programme.

This adaptation with reduced orchestra followed a year later - rescored by Jonathan Dove for an excellent fifteen piece band of company principals. The short run, under the umbrella title Scottish Opera On Tour only took in seven venues, though these were well spread around the country, from Galashiels up to Elgin. It restored the medium-scale element of its work that had been missing from Scottish Opera's programming for many years, attracting the jibe in some quarters that the company was really only in effect Centralt Belt Opera.

The quality of the performance began from the beautifully played account of the score under the baton of Derek Clark. The Orchestra of Scottish Opera is generally good, but here it produced some quite superb sounds. The updated staging was more effective than Bohème usually is in such circumstances, and the cast gave generally excellent, detailed performances, with no need to force in the intimate space of Dundee's Gardyne Theatre.