Opera Scotland

See Erik Chisholm's Simoon

Posted 6 Jul 2020

Music Co-OPERAtive Scotland (McOpera) will release the YouTube Premiere of Erik Chisholm’s one-act opera Simoon on Wednesday 8^th July 2020 at 7pm. 

While the current Covid-19 lockdown enforces a complete vacuum in relation to live opera performance, we are lucky that modern technology allows us to watch opera in other ways, and home-grown work at that. This online premiere forms part of the hugely welcome UK-wide artistic response.

An exhausted French Legionnaire is caught in the brutal Algerian desert storm, his fate in the balance. The simoon – the North African dry and violent desert wind – gives its name to Strindberg’s psychological drama reimagined in 1952 by Glaswegian composer Erik Chisholm, but which remained unperformed in its fully orchestrated version until this world premiere performance in 2015. 

Produced by McOpera (a group of orchestral players from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera) and conducted by Ian Ryan, Simoon boasts a stellar line up of some of the UK’s finest singers - soprano Jane Irwin, current Scottish Opera Emerging Artist Charlie Drummond, tenor Philip Sheffield and baritone Damian Thantrey.

Performed with live-edited film by Edinburgh based Roddy Simpson and featuring actor Michael Daviot with dancers Salma Faraji and Erick Mauricia, Simoon was recorded live by Delphian Records Ltd.

Simoon was performed at the Western Baths in Glasgow on 8 June 2015 as part of the Cottier Chamber Project in a semi-staged production commissioned by The Erik Chisholm Trust.

To watch the performance, go to https://youtu.be/If4dow6X5nE

The audio recording of this performance of Simoon is issued on the Delphian label (DCD34139)

https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/erik-chisholm-simoon