Thursday 24 May 2012
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Scottish Opera

18 articles, sorted by name / date

The Rake's Progress »

Rake's

*****
As Scottish Opera prepare to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary this year, they offer us David McVicar's production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, which is as joyous and accomplished as one could hope for. Deserving the highest of praise,...

Thu 26 Apr 2012 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

Hansel & Gretel »

Leah-Marian Jones (Witch) in Hansel & Gretel for Scottish Opera

***
Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, produced here by Scottish Opera, holds a unique place in the history of the operatic form: written at the tail end of the romantic era, it came out of a period when Germany was finding it almost impossible to ...

Thu 01 Mar 2012 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

Late comic opera at the centre of latest student collaboration »

7226_thumb

Now in its seventh successive year, the prestigious and much coveted collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly known as the RSAMD) and Scottish Opera has come to define the Winter season for students. A selection of the fines...

Mon 06 Feb 2012 by Ottavia Elisabetta Miorelli | Read more »

Betrothal in a Monastery »

Scottish Opera's collaborations with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (the artist-school formerly known as the RSAMD) now enter their seventh year, and despite the déjà vu familiarity of yet another mediocre Prokofiev opera, the p...

Wed 01 Feb 2012 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

Clockwork »

***
Philip Pullman's power and authenticity as a storyteller rest on his universal appeal. Crucially, like all truly great writers of children's fiction, Pullman never patronises his readers. Complex intertwining story lines and dark Faustian themes make u...

Wed 14 Sep 2011 by Sean Watson | Read more »

Orpheus in the Underworld »

Jane Harrington as Eurydice and Nicholas Sharratt as Orpheus

***
Scottish Opera join forces with Rory Bremner to create a new version of Jacques Offenbach’s seminal comedy, Orpheus in the Underworld. Directed by Oliver Mears, this new and very colourful production probes the depths of recent celebrity scandals...

Wed 14 Sep 2011 by Amy Taylor | Read more »

Intermezzo »

Intermezzo

*****
Last week the Edinburgh Festival Theatre saw what will undoubtedly prove to be the highlight of Scottish Opera’s 2010/11 season: Richard Strauss’s oddball comedy, Intermezzo. This is an opera unlike any other. Strauss forces the heroic mel...

Wed 20 Apr 2011 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

Orlando »

Tim Mead as Orlando and Sally Silver as Angelica

***
The name George Frideric Handel rarely connotes opera, and so Scottish Opera’s production of Orlando comes as a novelty for even the most steadfast of aficionados. There is something refreshing about going to the opera without bias (excepting the...

Wed 09 Mar 2011 by Derval Tannam | Read more »

The Cunning Little Vixen »

The Cunning Little Vixen

***
The last few weeks have seen performances of the latest collaboration between Scottish Opera and the RSAMD: Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen. Written late in Janácek's life, this opera is a complex affair full of underlying tension and...

Thu 10 Feb 2011 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

The Adventures of Mr Broucek »

John Graham-Hall and Claire Wild in The Adventures of Mr Broucek

*****
Scottish Opera's latest effort, Janacek's The Adventures of Mr Broucek, is a bizarre and beautiful headspin. In a Gulliver's Travels-meets-The Wizard of Oz-meets-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas style adventure story, we see our hero ascend through the h...

Fri 14 May 2010 by Jonathan Goat | Read more »

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 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 »

Peter Sidhom (Falstaff) & Alasdair Elliott (Bardolfo)

****
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 »

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