Opera Scotland

Bohème 2010Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Bohème

Scottish Opera's 2009/10 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.

Stewart Laing's 2004 staging received its only revival and was, once more, warmly received in most quarters, and certainly a great improvement on his vacuous Così fan tutte. Musically it was excellent, with a youthful cast doing all that the director required of them. Playing Bohème in the trendy New York art world of the present day doesn't seem especially adventurous, when modern dress has become a bit of a cliché for this work, and it must be said that some audience members still found the garishly bright illumination, especially in the second act, rendered the production almost unwatchable.

The published schedule allowed for Derek Clark to conduct a single performance on 13 March. However, air transport around Europe was reduced to chaos as a result of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Francesco Corti was marooned in Italy, and missed at least 18 April - any others to be confirmed.