Scottish Opera maestro agrees another year

Scottish Opera’s music director is to step down in 2013 after extending his contract by a single year to see out its 50th anniversary season.

Francesco Corti will conduct two major operas, Wagner’s the Flying Dutchman and Massenet’s Werther, while the company launches its hunt for another maestro.

Corti was appointed on a five-year contract in 2007, due to expire this summer. However, talks about an extension ran into late last week, in an industry that often plans major productions two or three years in advance.

The company was keen for him to stay on, but Corti had been considering his future “in the light of resources at the company”, one source said.

The company’s general director, Alex Reedijk, said: “I’m really thrilled that Maestro Corti has agreed to extend his contract until the summer of 2013, and I’m particularly thrilled about the two operas he is conducting for us in our anniversary season.

“He was booked to do the two operas, and the conversation began. We have a really amicable relationship. We’re really pleased he’s giving us another year.”

Opera Magazine, which first reported in its June issue that Corti was likely to move on, said the conductor’s track record at the company had been “decidedly mixed”.

Reviews of his major productions in Scotland, including operas at the Edinburgh International Festival, such as Smetana’s The Two Widows or Puccini’s the Girl of the Golden West, have varied from admiring to uncertain. But the company’s revival of its production of Tosca, under his baton and playing at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre this week, has had a glowing reception.

Corti, who has worked with opera companies worldwide, took up the baton at Scottish Opera at a difficult time. Just before he took the post in 2007, the opera had gone “dark” for a season and lost its full-time chorus as a long-running series of financial crises hit a climax.

Last year, its orchestra was moved to a part-time status.

With Mr Reedijk in the general director’s job for another four years, observers see signs that the company is beginning to turn its fortunes around.While it still only sees four or five major productions a year, compared with eight or nine previously, it is showcasing four new short operas at the Edinburgh Festival this year.

The opera publication also fed speculation that one of the front-runners to replace Corti is the leading Swedish conductor Tobias Ringborg. Based on strong showings as a guest conductor with Scottish Opera for productions Cosi fan Tutte in 2009 and Rigoletti in 2011, he would be a top choice, writer Andrew Clark said.

Both he and Corti are represented by the same music agency, Rayfield Allied.

Mr Reedijk said: “We will begin the search for a successor in due course. It’s idle speculation, but he [Ringborg] has certainly worked well with Scottish Opera, as have other conductors in recent years.”