Opera Scotland

Love for Three Oranges 2009Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD)

Read more about the opera Love for Three Oranges

The RSAMD had started a series of co-operative ventures with the Conservatoire of Rostov-on-Don and Scottish Opera, with a fascinating staging of Massenet's Cendrillon in 2006. The first venture into Russian repertoire in 2008, with Eugene Onegin, was not entirely successful, perhaps trying too hard to be different. However 2009 saw the start of a magnificent venture - a cycle of works by Prokofiev rarely, if ever, seen in Scotland. Lee Blakely had already shown a fertile imagination with a lively staging of A Night at the Chinese Opera, and if anything, Oranges suffered from a lack of restraint. But it was undoubtedly tremendous fun, with an enormous number of students on stage and a big orchestra from Scottish Opera and the Academy making lovely sounds in the pit.

 

2009/10 season of Scottish Opera

The season contained four full main-stage productions plus one small-scall-tour. The two works the company had never touched before were the young Rossini's frothy Italian Girl in Algiers and Leoš Janáček'a Adventures of Mr Brouček. The two revivals were an ultra-traditional Elisir d'amore and an ultra-modern Bohème. There was also  a piano-accompanied tour of a second Janáček piece, Kátya Kabanová.

There were some additional elements, however, including a third programme of new short chamber pieces under the 5:15 umbrella. There was also a 'Scenes & Arias' tour by four  young singers and a pianist, the old Essential Scottish Opera format now revised as Opera Highlights. There was a new 'Interactive Opera for 3 to 6 Year Olds', entitled Auntie Janet Saves The Planet. Two well-contrasted co-productions also featured. Music Theatre Wales brought a new chamber piece by Eleanor Alberga, Letters of a Love Betrayed, while the RSAMD joined forces with the orchestra and technical staff of Scottish Opera to mount the Scottish premiere of Prokofiev's wonderful Tolstoy adaptation War and Peace.

Scottish Opera had twice before staged Janáček operas with piano accompaniment for the annual small-scale tour. After the success of Jenůfa (1986) and The Makropulos Case it was only a matter of time before the company tried Kátya. It worked very effectiveley in this form too.