Opera Scotland

Rodelinda 1992Handel at Hopetoun

Read more about the opera Rodelinda

It was a marvellous achievement to stage a baroque opera in the ideal surroundings of the ballroom at Hopetoun.  The idea was conceived by Joan Busby, who was able to attract influential board members, and acted as Director as the concept grew to embrace additional events.  The performances of Rodelinda were memorable, a great success musically and dramatically. The financial outcome however was not sufficiently encouraging to allow a second Festival the following year.  It would seem to be the ideal venue - spectacular yet intimate, close to Edinburgh, but easily accessible from the west and the north. Perhaps it is time to try this again.

The small band of authentic instruments was directed by David Roblou, a practised hand at such music from his Midsummer Opera enterprise in London. Rebecca Evans was already recognised as a star of the future, and Michael Chance was the leading British exponent of Handel's castrato roles in the generation following James Bowman. Alasdair Elliott's future lay with the great character roles of the tenor repertoire, while Paul McNamara would return to Scotland as a heldentenor, singing Bacchus at the Perth Festival.

The intimacy of this semi-staging by Kate Brown must have made those who saw it all the more disappointed in the autumn, when Scottish Opera mounted their underwhelming production of Giulio Cesare, in which Michael Chance had a very different experience in the title role.