The Smillie style

My old friend Thomson Smillie, Scottish Opera’s head of publicity in its wonder years, died recently in the United States, where he had spent most of his time after his departure from his native Glasgow almost forty years ago. For those of us who had been unable to attend his funeral in Kentucky, there  was an opportunity today to meet and, at a small gathering in a Glasgow hotel,  exchange reminiscences and watch a video of two of Thomson’s four offspring - Jono and Julia - delivering funeral orations in the ornate surroundings of Louisville’s cathedral.

Above all we were able to talk to Marilyn, whom Thomson married nine years ago after the death of his first wife, Anne;  she had flown here specially for the occasion, which had been planned by Thomson’s brother Campbell.   Sue and I had met her once before, when she and Thomson were on one of their lengthy cruises on which Thomson gave operatic lectures. By then he had retired from the Kentucky Opera, which he had run for fifteen years;  but he had by no means forsaken the stage and, between lectures, was directing opera - mostly comedies, for which he had a distinctive flair -  in a freelance capacity around America. 

Before leaving Scottish Opera he had cherished a private hope that one day he would run the Glasgow-based company. But at that point in his career, just after the acquisition of the Theatre Royal,  he was still too young and inexperienced to succeed Peter Hemmings, the company’s original administrator who by then had left for Australia. So instead he ran the adventurous and delightful Wexford Festival in Ireland.  Then he ran the Boston Opera for the ambitious but churlish conductor Sarah Caldwell. 

But it was in Kentucky that he found the conditions he really wanted to raise his children and create an American equivalent of Scottish Opera.  Maintaining contact with his former company,  he bought David Pountney’s sensational production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel, invited  Sir Alexander Gibson to conduct a high-profile Verdi cycle and had just embarked on a Puccini cycle with him at the time of Gibson’s sudden death.

When, as a critic, I flew over to see Thomson’s company at work under Gibson’s conductorship, it felt like old times. But more often it was Thomson who came to Europe, talent-scouting, fixing schedules, or meeting  friends. A year or two ago, before illness struck him,  he and Marilyn arrived briefly in Edinburgh en route to Copenhagen. Sue and I invited them to a convivial lunch at our home on the south side. Inevitably it overran. Their boat, they realised, was about to sail. But Sue, a resourceful driver,  got them to Leith Docks on time. As - last on board -  they dashed up the gangplank, Thomson’s flamboyant bow tie seemed only just to stay in place. We did not know that it would be the last time we would ever see him. It was good today that Marilyn agreed to replace him as godfather of our middle daughter, Cosima. 

9 June 2014