From the perfectly enunciated “Merde!” with which Jamie MacDougall’s cuckolded clockmaker Torquemada prefaces the overture to Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, this double-bill pairing the knockabout farce of infidelity with Walton’s lesser-known work is enormous fun.
MacDougall, a company stalwart, is the most experienced in a cast of current and recent Scottish Opera Emerging Artists, but the youth of the singers belies the depth of the characterisation they brought to Jacopo Spirei’s staging (adapted to fit the restrictions of St Mary’s church) that made musical and theatrical sense of the pairing.
