Double bill was unusual and big success

Scottish Opera presented a most unusual and successful double bill in Perth Concert Hall on March 15.

The mix was Rachmaninov’s early The Miserly Knight, never seen in Scotland before, and Stravinsky’s comic Mavra, only seen in student productions. Conductor for the evening was their ever excellent music director Stuart Stratford.

Differences in the works were evident from the orchestras required: Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight a dark, brooding work, with male voices only, had a huge platform filling symphony orchestra; Stravinsky’s Mavra had women’s voices, only one man, few strings, brass and woodwind.

Further they had different shapes and intent: the three scenes of the Rachmaninov were each through-composed, the Stravinsky was divided into short individual arias, duets and ensembles.

Both were sung in Russian with surtitles in English.

Acting on the apron extension, the Rachmaninov had the semi-circle of five male protagonists, all dressed in black, all ably sung.

Much shorter, Stravinsky’s Mavra had a mirrored dressing table on the apron stage matching the garish 1950s dresses, hats included.

In Mavra, wanting to evade her suspicious mother, the daughter tries to get time together with her would-be lover the Hussar Vassili. Vassili gets dressed as a comic replacement of the maid, Mavra.

The mother, suspecting that this paragon of a maid is up to something, sneaks back and finds ‘her’ having a shave.

She collapses, he runs off in the too abrupt ending, leaving room for more comical business in the much applauded curtain calls.