Opera Scotland

L'Heure espagnole in Scotland

Posted 12 Aug 2025

L'Heure espagnole received its first Scottish performance at the King's Theatre, Glasgow on 29 May 1963.  This was during Scottish Opera's second season, which consisted of a week in Glasgow, followed by, for the first time, a week in Edinburgh.  The production was a collaboration with the New Opera Company, based in London - an organisation that produced unusual modern operas at Sadler's Wells Theatre.  The manager was Peter Hemmings, who was in the process of transferring his activities to Scotland, where he would manage Scottish Opera until the late '70s.  The second work in the double bill was a UK premiere by a then living Itallan modernist - Volo di notte (Night Flight) by Luigi Dallapiccola, a 1940 tragedy based on a story by the great French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The conductor, Brian Priestman, only returned to Scottish Opera once, when he led the 1979 Christmas season staging of Die Fledermaus, memorable for the virtuoso rendering of the jailer Frosch by Billy Connolly.  The production team of Anthony Besch (director) and Peter Rice (designer) worked often with the company, and their 1980 staging of Tosca is still on the books.

The singers in 1963 were largely attached to Sadler's Wells Opera, and familiar from the company's annual tours in Scotland.  Concepciòn was played by the great Australian singing actress Marie Collier, not often associated with comedy.  Her husband was played by an excellent character tenor, Edward Byles.  Baritone Peter Glossop, as well as playing Ramiro, was the rather different character of Iago in the famous new Otello staging.  The French-Canadian Emile Belcourt was Gonzalve with Howell Glynne as Don Iñigo Gomez.

The opera did not appear again in Scotland until 2007, when it was the vehicle for a student staging at the RSAMD in Glasgow.  Here it was coupled with a more obviously popular piece in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. Timothy Dean conducted the staging by Martin Lloyd-Evans, more recently associated with Scottish Opera's productions of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The student cast included both Susan Boyd and Michelle Foster as Concepciòn.  Other performers included Dominic Peckham (Torquemada), James Geer (Gonzalve), Markus Norrman (Ramiro) and Trevor Eliot Bowes (Don Iñigo).

The only subsequent performance was also the opera's only appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival.  In 2010 the RSNO gave a concert performance in the Usher Hall, allowing its chief Stephane Denève to make a rare appearance as an operatic conductor.

Sophie Koch made a rare appearance in Britain as Concepciòn.  The men were Keith Lewis (Torquemada), Gordon Gietz (Gonzalve), Johannes Weisser (Ramiro) and Christopher Purves (Don Iñigo).