Acknowledgements
Ventures such as OperaScotland are not the efforts of a single individual but are co-created.
Here we offer the warmest of thanks to all those who have supplied comments, suggestions and memories as we set out on this ambitious project.
Thanks therefore to Alex Reedijk and all at Scottish Opera; everyone at the Edinburgh International Festival; those at RSAMD; the archivists at the Royal Opera House and very many others past and present – John Calder, Sheila Colvin, Duncan Black and Robin Richardson.
Our father and mother too, enthusiasts about the transforming powers of the arts, who introduced us as children to a wide range of performances and exhibitions.
Foreword
It is not always easy to recall much about the origin of projects.
OperaScotland is no exception. We know we discussed plans in 2007 in some depth, the original idea dating from much earlier. More serious work started in 2009.
As we can only work on it part time, the pace has sometimes seemed slow. The passage of time has brought often heated debate as the work develops. There have been the inevitable shifts of direction and emphasis, not to mention enthusiasm.
But we three brothers, Iain, Peter and Stephen, opera-lovers all, were frustrated and motivated by the decline in the number of live opera performances available.
Additional motivation came because of a statement said to have been made by a Scottish politician to the effect that opera is not really part of Scottish culture. For us, growing up with Scottish Opera (and the Edinburgh International Festival) as we did, access to opera is very definitely part of our culture, not just because we are Europeans but because opera is part of world culture.
Frustration came also on a more practical level as in our busy lives we found we had missed performances through the 'clutter' of information overload. Nowadays newspapers routinely fail to list forthcoming performances, while other sources of information appear in so many forms. Unless you have subscribed to a mailing list or an email listing, such detail is easily overlooked. Opera, being a minority interest, inevitably suffers more than most.
We see this website as forming a 'one stop' solution where you can find details of all forthcoming performances.
As time goes on, too, we've been developing an archive. Initially we were simply trying to identify the dates of Scottish operatic premieres. This we soon realised meant the first steps on the long road to building a database of opera performances in Scotland from their very beginning. This work is now well advanced although very much behind the scenes. We now plan this will lead to a series of publications telling the story of opera in Scotland, company by company and performance by performance.
In the process we have received some wonderful and heart-warming emails. We therefore know from our correspondence that our aims are appreciated by others not just in Scotland but all over the world.
Thank you for your comments and continued engagement.