Friday 10 February 2012
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Opera

11 articles, sorted by name / date

La Boheme »

Avi Klemberg and Celine Byrne in La Boheme

*****
Maybe it’s just the election fever currently sweeping the country, but it seems quite credible to read Scottish Opera’s most recent double bill as a rather progressive political statement. After last week's Mr Broucek, with its sustained c...

Thu 13 May 2010 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

A (Free) Night At The Opera »

La Boheme (i-33)

Recently, The Journal issued a call to arms, inviting our readers to join us for a night at the opera. The aim was to explore the appeal of opera to a student audience, using Scottish Opera's latest production, a re-imagining of Puccini's La Bohè...

Wed 17 Mar 2010 by Amy Taylor | Read more »

War and Peace »

Scottish Opera- War and Peace

**
Last week saw the opening of Rita McAllister’s revision of Prokofiev’s War and Peace into its original, intended format. The story goes that Soviet meddling left the opera bastardised and less human: tonight, we are told, the integrity of t...

Wed 03 Feb 2010 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

The Elixir of Love »

The Elixir of Love

*****
Scottish Opera's two November offerings of The Italian Girl in Algiers and The Elixir of Love are apparently a musical attempt to make us all a bit less crabbit in the midst of a year of crap weather – Alex Reedijk opens the programme by explaini...

Wed 25 Nov 2009 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

The Italian Girl in Algiers »

The Italian Girl in Algiers

****
In rounding off 2009 with a pair of light comedies, it would appear Scottish Opera were playing their cards safely, but Colin McColl's production of The Italian Girl in Algiers, though amusing and light-hearted, is anything but. A collaboration with N...

Wed 25 Nov 2009 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

Così fan tutte »

***
So women, we informed in Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, are all like that. Very well. But da Ponte doesn’t in fact, care to inform us what it is, precisely, that women are all like. Are sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella shameless hussies, or r...

Wed 13 May 2009 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

La Clemenza di Tito »

****
Delivered to great effect in the elegant St. Cecelia’s hall, La Clemenza di Tito tells the story of Vitellia and her manipulation of Sesto, who makes an attempt on the life of his dear friend Emperor Tito after he rejects Vitellia. But Tito annou...

Fri 27 Mar 2009 by Steven Dow Cowan | Read more »

La Traviata »

La Traviata

****
Scottish Opera’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata is a veritable feast for the eyes and ears, providing feats of operatic superiority, a lavish set and affecting, emotional performances. This timeless tale concerns the forbidden love betw...

Tue 09 Dec 2008 by Anna Fenton | Read more »

Comparable beauty »

Reno Troilus (Military Governor)

****
One could spend an awfully long time searching for two more contrasting productions. Verdi's final opera, Falstaff, is frivolous, fun and musically dense: the Scottish composer Judith Weir's 1987 opera, A Night at the Chinese Opera is measured, demandi...

Tue 27 May 2008 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

Eugene Onegin »

***
There's a division which slices through Tchaikovsky's opera, Eugene Onegin, between romantic love and what Madame Larina, the lady of the manor, terms "the real world". The tragedy of Pushkin's text is a series of revelations as to the irrec...

Thu 14 Feb 2008 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

Smooth opera-tion »

Thomas Oliemans as Figaro

****
Let's face it – Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Mozart's Seraglio aren't a million miles apart. In the former, beautiful Rosina is rescued by dashing young Count Almaviva from the old, lecherous Don Bartolo, all comically masterminded by the ...

Mon 03 Dec 2007 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

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