Opera Scotland

Entführung aus dem Serail 1982Scottish Opera

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The 1982 revival of Pountney's excellent 1978 staging saw the return of Stafford Dean's lithe and thoroughly dangerous Osmin with an otherwise new cast. Yvonne Kenny came back to the company for the first time since her Paminas and again gave a winning performance. She was a thoroughly easy-voiced Konstanze, with no vocal difficulties whatever, and the production suited her well. There were two tenors as Belmonte - on the autumn tour (dates still to be entered), Robin Leggate was as good as he had been the year before as Ferrando. Glasgow performances had Ryland Davies, who had not worked in Scotland for several years, and was more used to playing Belmonte in German - he had sung it at Glyndebourne early in his career, and in various seasons since had partnered both Margaret Price and Valerie Masterson. Adrian Thompson's natural sense of fun made him an ideal Pedrillo, and Deborah Rees and her cover both seemed to find Blonde a congenial role. Oscar James gave the spoken role of Selim more depth than usual, to the point where you almost wondered why Konstanze had a problem with him even before his generosity of character is revealed at the end.