Opera Scotland

Cenerentola 2014Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Cenerentola

Having decided, as normal, to attend a performance in Edinburgh, your OperaScotland reviewer was pushed by other commitments into catching the very last performance of the run. Having read some early reviews, which were decidedly mixed, it was with some mild foreboding that I awaited the overture.

Just as on the occasion of a first performance there are normally some loose ends, so on the last one might hope for a strong performance from all the cast, and so it proved. The performers were all now returned to full health, with no substitutions. All seemed well from the moment the orchestra struck up, and any reservations were set aside. Rossini's sparkling music came over effectively throughout under the baton of William Lacey, making his Scottish Opera debut with this production.

Richard Burkhard and Rebecca Bottone were familiar faces, and Máire Flavin too had given an entertaining performance in medium-scale Offenbach not long ago.

Graeme Danby. on the other hand, had not been seen here for some time. Danby began his career in the Scottish Opera Chorus, and had sung a long list of small roles for the company. Since those days his career has been largely developed in London, especially with ENO. Early in the run he had to be replaced by the highly experienced Umberto Chiummo, who was familiar with the staging, having been in the Strasbourg cast. The others were new to Scottish Opera, and two of them, the Alidoro and Ramiro, were in fine form by the end of the run, having not been entirely healthy at the start. The star of the show was undoubtedly Victoria Yarovaya, and she was every bit as good as earlier reports had said.

Cenerentola is particularly notable for its sharp ensembles and these came up as crisply as could be hoped for.

The co-production with Opéra National du Rhin, designed by Claude Chestier and directed by Sandrine Anglade, seemed at times too 'busy' and the comedy perhaps a little heavy-handed. But this is a great romantic comedy, with fine music, and not seen in Scotland as often as might be expected. The performance was thoroughly enjoyable, and it seemed a pity there was not a full house in the Festival Theatre.