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5 June, 1962, saw the birth of a wildly ambitious young opera company for Scotland.

Thousands of people flocked to the King鈥檚 Theatre in Glasgow for the company鈥檚 inaugural week of performances (Puccini鈥檚 Madam Butterfly and Debussy鈥檚 Pelleas and Melisande). On the podium was a brilliant young Scottish conductor: Alexander Gibson, born in Motherwell and already famous after making waves at London鈥檚 opera houses. At just 33, he had became the first home-grown principal conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra. And while his predecessors had often used their time in Scotland as a staging post en route to what they saw as bigger things, Alexander Gibson wanted to make Scotland his big thing. And he spotted a glaring gap in the market in Glasgow.

In 1960, Scotland still had no regular professional opera company of its own. Alexander Gibson dreamed of making the Scottish National Orchestra the equivalent of the Vienna Philharmonic: a heavyweight ensemble that could serve the opera pit as well as the concert stage. In 1962 he put his plan into action.

Scottish Opera was built on political nous and sheer, dogged ambition. Lord Harewood, one-time director of the Edinburgh Festival, described the very existence of the company as a "sublime confidence trick". Scottish Opera staged Strauss, it staged Wagner - in its heyday, it staged the entire Ring Cycle. Donald Runnicles, the finest opera conductor ever to emerge from Scotland, remembers his formative experiences of attending epic Scottish Opera productions of Germanic opera. He recalls 鈥渁 huge and courageous company". "One had the impression,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hat it was indestructible.鈥�

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 麻豆社 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 麻豆社 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This is an excerpt from a recording of the finale of Strauss's Salome, featuring the Scottish Opera Orchestra with soprano Josephine Barstow and conductor John Mauceri.

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