Dazzling Opera Highlights
A packed house in Brodick Hall welcomed four young singers and a brilliant pianist on Saturday, 11th February. Taking part in a whirlwind tour, these representatives of Scottish Opera undertook an incredibly close – packed performance of arias and duets from operas both known and unknown – and didn’t they do well! With glorious voices and tremendous charm, they put over pieces that were by the nature the dramatic height of the opera they came from, so there was no slackening of tension throughout the demanding programme.
There is a particular magic about touring shows. The way they unpack from a van all the ingredients from which to construct a different world is always astonishing. This production required neutral ground in which a wide variety of different places and different moods could be evoked, but this was cunningly staged in a kind of transit situation. A dress – rail provided props and a flip – chart kept pace with the numbers in rather the same way as a station departure board. From the first quartet from La Traviata, we knew we were in safe hands. Anita Watson and Rosie Aldridge, soprano and mezzo, were partnered with Edwardian gravity by Robert Anthony Gardiner, tenor, and Marcus Farnsworth, baritone, and the balance was perfect. They managed to be funny as well as touching, and each one had a glorious, free – ranging voice.
The programme covered a lot of ground, from favourites such as ‘Where e’re you walk’ from Handel’s Semele to a completely new piece by Gareth Williams, who is Scottish Opera’s Composer in Residence. This, to my mind, was the highlight of the evening. Sung with great sensitivity by Rosie Aldridge and Robert Anthony Gardiner, this evocation of desperate love packed a tremendous emotional punch. The repeated, helpless entreaty, ‘Hold me,’ thinned to an unrequited end that was deeply moving.
If there was one slight criticism to be made, it was in the costumes worn by the girls. Bunchy, with white spots or white freckles on a dark background, they were both of that fatal knee – length that cuts any figure into three equal chunks and is apt to make ladies look like Henry VIII in drag. A yellow cardigan didn’t help much, and seeing these beautiful young women after the show in their own clothes demonstrated wordlessly how much more elegant they could have looked. But despite this, the evening was a brilliant one, and everyone was saying how much we all hope that Scottish Opera will come to Arran again.
