Opera Scotland

Etoile 2023Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Read more about the opera Étoile

The Edinburgh International Festival has twice imported stagings of this wonderful comic masterpiece.  Given the success of those two productions, from first Lyon (1985) then Leeds (1994), it seems astonishing that it has taken nearly thirty years for a Scottish organization to attempt it.  Admittently the students at Edinburgh University did do it, as long ago as 1974, but that was in a version with a much reduced orchestration which inevitably lost some of Chabrier's wonderfully sensitive sound world.

It was therefore long overdue for Glasgow audiences to have an opportunity to get to know one of the greatest of French operettas - more subtle than Offenbach, but equally hilarious.  The importation of a Gallic conductor ensured the requisite fizz in the orchestra.  Chabrier's orchestration is genius.

It was very good news that some of the later performances actually sold out, in spite of the text being delivered in French.