Rimsky's delightful satire received its first Scottish performance on 15 October 1918, with two appearances in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh on that visit. Here the production returned for a further batch of four performances, with one more to come in 1920, shortly before the Beecham company folded. It was, however, one of the stagings inherited by BNOC, and eventually re-appeared under their auspices.
On this occasion, the evening was completed by a choral ballet sequence, taken from Musorgsky's grand historical epic Khovanshchina. This was little known at the time, but would have seemed a suitable companion piece, given that it was been presented in the orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Abbreviated cast details are from the Scotsman of 18 September.
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