Opera Scotland

Opera Highlights 2024Scottish Opera

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Scottish Opera's regular tour of a carefully devised programme of operatic excerpts compiled by Derek Clark started off with a performance in Greenock on 11 February.  Covering nineteeen venues, it continued until 23 March, when the tour ended in Largs. The itinerary ranged from Tongue and Stornoway in the north to Duns in the south.  Even for the one Scot among the singers, this was an excellent way to see the country.  For the Ukrainian, American and Chinese soloists it was a tour they are unlikely to forget.  The Opscot team finally caught up with it at the 18th performance, at the intimate Byre Theatre in St Andrews, when it fizzed delightfully from start to finish.  It packed audience seemed to enjoy it even more than the performers.

The scenario devised by Laura Attridge into which all these items were fitted was introduced by her -

''We are here to celebrate a wedding and to explore the stories that happen in the margins of this kind of occasion.  Our characters - four guests and four staff members - will find their narratives intereaving as the day progresses.  We follow them through a series of intimate exchanges via a rich programme of operatic gems.''

The musical programme (sung variously in English, French, Italian and Russian) was

Part One

Verdi La traviata: Brindis ''Libiamo ne' lieti calici'' (quartet)

Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin: Onegin's Aria (IH, RC)

Rossini La cenerentola ''Nacqui all'afanno'' (LS)

Handel Giulio Cesare: ''V'adoro pupille'' (IH)

Donizetti L'elisir d'amore ''Una furtiva lagrima'' (SR)

Donizetti La fille du régiment: ''Tous les trois réunis'' (IH, SR, RC)

Offenbach Les contes d'Hoffmann: Barcarolle ''Belle nuit'' (IH, LS)

Puccini La bohème: ''In un coupé?'' (SR, RC)

Gounod Roméo et Juliette: ''Que fais-tu blanch tourterelle?'' (IH, SR)

G Charpentier Louise: ''Depuis le jour'' (IH)

Mozart The Magic Flute: ''Papagena! Papagena! (RC)

Mozart The Magic Flute: ''Pa..pa..pa'' (IH, RC)

Part Two

Toby Hession ''In Flagrante'' scene for four voices and piano (Quartet)

Gounod Roméo et Juliette: ''L'amour, l'amour....Ah! Lêve-toi soleil'' (SR)

Lehár: The Merry Widow: Vilja Song (IH)

J Strauss II Blindekuh: Promenade-quartett (Quartet)

Sullvan HMS Pinafore ''Fair moon, to thee I sing'' (RC)

Walton The Bear: 'I was a constant, faithful wife'' (LS)

Weill Lady in the Dark: Ballad of Jenny (Quartet)

Encore - Bernstein: Wrong Note Rag (Quartet)

With most of the items sung in the original languages, it was perhaps a pity that supertitles were not available, but the cost would clearly have been prohibitive.  The singers achieved everything required through their acting, with spoken linkages.

These tours alays include one specially commissioned item, and this scene by Toby Hession was a ribald and thoroughly enjoyable piece - the venue had the previous evening played host to a political conference, with hung-over delegates crawling out of the woodwork, increasingly appalled as they remember how the evening ended.

More conventional highlights included the items by Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, Gounod and Charpentier.  G & S is usually represented by a comic ensemble, so it was nice to hear Captain Corcoran's serenade for a change.  It was also good to be reminded of Weill's Lady in the Dark.  This was given a memorable concert performance by Scottish Opera at the 1988 Edinburgh Festival, when the wonderful Patricia Hodge brought the house down with the Ballad of Jenny.