Opera Scotland

What's new: an update on progress with OperaScotland

Posted 5 May 2019

Since this website was launched almost ten years ago, a vast amount of information has been uploaded. In addition many relatively small changes have been made to improve ease of use.

Traffic has continued to build and it is clear from the visits and comments we receive that OperaScotland is highly valued both by performers and opera fans. However, to ensure that the site continues to be relevant, we have decided to launch a major review. We therefore need again to be asking what you, the users, want from the site.

Some of our recent work is summarised below. What do we do well? What could we do better?

Please email us with comments and ideas. In the first instance please send your suggestions to iain@operascotland.org.  

Carl Rosa Opera in Scotland

We have been concentrating on building up performance details for Carl Rosa Opera. This amazing organisation, under shifting managements after the death of its co-founder Carl Rosa, took opera in English to the provinces and made it into a popular form of entertainment throughout the UK and Ireland.

Why aren't we pursuing it across the UK as a whole? Well. 'we lack the resources' would be a starting response. Let's try to deal with Scotland first. Anyhow, from its first visit to Scotland, in 1874, to its last in 1957, Carl Rosa Opera gave many professional mainstage performances not just in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but Dundee and Aberdeen.  Greenock and Perth too were visited.

Our list of the Rosa’s mainstage performances in Scotland now totals an astonishing 2916. Doubtless there will be some more to add in due course.

Richness of content

New items of interest are found and published on the site. These should be quite clear because visible. Site development 'backstage' is less obvious. For example, as well as adding more performances, we have been inserting more links to develop navigation between entries. This is inevitably a slow process.

Look at these examples –

Tannhauser 1905

Pagliacci 1916

Jeanie Deans 1918

Barber of Seville 1948

Benvenuto Cellini 1957

Scroll down each page, then click on the links and work your way round other performances on the tours.