By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 8 November 2006]

Reduced to four productions per season, Scottish Opera’s choices are unenviable. As a subsidised company it can’t just do Tosca and La traviata – but if it is to go beyond the “popular” without depleting its audience, it needs to choose carefully. Better follow the ensemble principle – establish the resources, then see what is possible – than choose an opera and see if it can be cast. But Scottish Opera has taken the latter route.