United Kingdom Dukas, Gershwin, Ravel: Ethan Loch (piano), Anna Stéphany (mezzo-soprano), Soloists from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, RCS Chamber Choir, RSNO Youth Chorus (director: Patrick Barrett), Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Thomas Søndergård (conductor). Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 27.3.2026. (SRT)
Dukas – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue
Ravel – L’enfant et les sortilèges
Concert performances of operas do not come around very often but, after Scottish Opera’s Tristan und Isolde and the BBC SSO’s Pelléas et Mélisande, the RSNO’s L’enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Spells) is the third one that Scottish audiences have been treated to this month. This L’enfant was by some way the most adventurous production of the three, with a stage erected between the orchestra and the Usher Hall’s choir gallery, and costumed performers galloping around it as magical furniture or indignant garden animals.
Ravel’s opera is so tricky to mount that it is as successful in the mind’s eye as on the stage, particularly when it is done with commitment like this one was. With the exception of Anna Stéphany’s brattish Child, all of the soloists were students at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Conservatoire, and they each made the most of their moment in the spotlight. Highlights included the marvellous coloratura of Anna Pych as Fire, Shauna Healy’s lyrical Princess and Alex White’s agonised Tree. Alongside the ensemble’s charming pastorale and the cacophony of garden animals, choral support was provided ably by the RSNO Youth Chorus.
Equally keen to capitalise on their moment in the sun were the players of the orchestra, who brought Ravel’s score to life with enchantment and charm. The meandering pair of oboes that set the scene so evocatively, the charming solo flute, the feline clarinet, the woozy trombone; all were equal actors in the drama, and conductor Thomas Søndergård shaped the whole thing with a light touch and a raised eyebrow.
There was just as much drama on display in a bouncy, idiomatic Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and even more in a terrifically upbeat Rhapsody in Blue, complete with sleazy winds and a gorgeously lazy drawl to the brass. The show was pretty much stolen by Scottish pianist Ethan Loch, however, who brought easy, breezy confidence to his playing, and sounded as comfortable when part of the orchestral texture as when he was dominating it with his twirls of jive, swing and blues. As an encore, he played a cadenza from one of his own concertos, which featured fistfuls of chords in the manner an old-fashioned virtuoso vehicle, but also flecks of detail and sparkles of colour. It was dashed impressive playing, and the fact that Loch has been blind from birth may have added to that but, tellingly, wasn’t the most important thing.
Simon Thompson