Opera Scotland

Remembrance Day

Tours by decade

Tours by location

Music

Stuart MacRae

Text

Louise Welsh

 

Premieres

First Performance: Glasgow (Òran Mór), 20 February 2009.

Scottish Opera premiere: As above.

 

Background

Remembrance Day was put on last, at the end of a session of five new works where the audience as well as the performers, had worked hard and might have been expected to have developed fatigue. A creepy little thriller is just the job in those circumstances, and worked well.

 

Characters

Frances Grieve (contralto)

Douglas Grieve (bass)

Lyn (soprano)

 

Programme Note

Seventeen-year-old Lyn is saving for university by cleaning the house of two elderly neighbours, Douglas and Frances Grieve. Lyn is full of excitement at her future, and a little disgusted by the decrepitude of the Grieves' house. She's impatient to get away. When her iPod stops working she decides to play an old record, but the music rekindles the elderly couple's past, unleashing horrific consequences.