Scottish Opera has unveiled its 2023/24 Season, which features a UK premiere, a Scottish premiere, a Scottish Opera Younger Firm double invoice, and revivals of a few of its most beloved productions. The Season guarantees to be a celebratory showcase of the facility and fantastic thing about opera.
Alex Reedijk, Scottish Opera Basic Director, mentioned: ‘Following the ambition and achievement of our sixtieth Anniversary Season, we’re thrilled to current a 61st Season of thrilling premieres and cherished classics – carried out throughout Scotland and persevering with the Firm’s repute for top of the range opera, creative flexibility, and innovation.
‘Sir Thomas Allen’s much-loved, whimsical manufacturing of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville returns this autumn and excursions to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Aberdeen. Subsequent is the UK premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Marx in London! directed by Stephen Barlow, a madcap comedy looking for to unearth the human facet of the good theorist. To complete the Season, Verdi’s ever-popular La traviata returns in Sir David McVicar’s luxurious manufacturing – adored around the globe and now again dwelling in Scotland.
‘Scottish Opera Younger Firm presents an modern, immersive double invoice of Henry McPherson’s Maud and Kurt Weill’s Down within the Valley. Our partnership with Lammermuir Competition continues with Richard Strauss’ Daphne, which receives its Scottish premiere 85 years after its first efficiency. The French Assortment gives the range, innovation, and crowd-pleasing creations of France’s nice composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Opera Highlights, Pop-up Opera, and colleges initiatives journey to all corners of the nation, persevering with our unabated dedication to bringing opera to everybody in Scotland. This Season you too can see productions that started their lives at Scottish Opera around the globe, from Cardiff to Vancouver.
‘Whereas instances are onerous for all proper now, we’re massively pleased with the requirements of labor achieved over current years. We’re immensely grateful for the loyal help of everybody who makes our work potential, and we hope that you just discover a lot to get pleasure from and sit up for welcoming you quickly.’
Stuart Stratford, Scottish Opera Music Director, added: ‘There may be a lot to sit up for on this new season. I’m significantly delighted to current the Scottish premiere of Daphne, a not often carried out work by Richard Strauss. It reveals the composer on the top of his powers, and the orchestration is not only in regards to the sonic energy of seventy devices however the delicate mixing of all of the totally different color palettes. The singing roles are as virtuosic because the orchestral writing.
‘Jonathan Dove is one in all Britain’s most profitable worldwide composers, and his Marx in London! is an excellent satirical tackle one in all historical past’s most iconic and divisive thinkers, which provides actual human understanding to the entire protagonist’s idiosyncrasies. It has a extremely poignant conclusion, related to us all in the present day.
‘We’re additionally thrilled to be reviving The Barber of Seville, this time in English, which guarantees solely to strengthen the riotous hilarity of this comedian masterpiece. An unbelievable, first price solid options in La traviata, initially directed by Sir David McVicar, whose manufacturing of Il trittico blew audiences away earlier this yr.’
A really worldwide line-up of singers seems all through the season. Making their debuts with the Firm are Ross Cumming, Paul Hopwood, Inna Husieva, Claire Barnett-Jones, Jerome Knox, Harmless Masuku, Simone McIntosh, Ji-Min Park and Katy Thomson.
There are welcome return visits from Katherine Aitken, Orla Boylan, Francis Church, Alasdair Elliott, Anthony Gregory, Catriona Hewitson, Thomas D Hopkinson, Heather Ireson, Samuel Dale Johnson, Jessica Leary, Hye-Youn Lee, Monwabisi Lindi, Jamie MacDougall, Andrew McTaggart, William Morgan, Colin Murray, Shengzhi Ren, Lucy Schaufer, Lea Shaw, Paula Sides, David Stout, Roland Wooden, and Dingle Yandell.
Season 2023/24 Productions
Opening the season this September is the Scottish premiere of Richard Strauss’ Daphne. It varieties a part of the Opera in Live performance sequence, curated by Scottish Opera Music Director, Stuart Stratford, who’s captivated with introducing audiences to not often carried out works. Emma Jenkins (Opera Highlights 2022/23) directs this live performance staging, that includes Hye-Youn Lee, Shengzhi Ren, Claire Barnett-Jones and Dingle Yandell, accompanied by The Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Initially premiered 85 years in the past, this wistful one-act opera is loosely based mostly on Greek mythology as advised in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Euripides’ The Bacchae. Carried out first at Theatre Royal Glasgow, Daphne will then go to St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington, in partnership with Lammermuir Competition, and to the Usher Corridor in Edinburgh in December.
Daphne is supported by Buddies of Scottish Opera and The Scottish Opera Endowment Belief.
Sir Thomas Allen’s riotous manufacturing of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, designed by Simon Higlett, opens in October at Theatre Royal Glasgow. First seen in 2007, that is the third time Scottish Opera has introduced this pleasant comedy, and it excursions to Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. Stuart Stratford conducts Samuel Dale Johnson (Eugene Onegin and Pagliacci 2018) because the titular barber, with Anthony Gregory (Anthropocene 2019) and Simone McIntosh as Rely Almaviva and Rosina. Additionally becoming a member of the solid are David Stout (Nixon in China 2020) as Physician Bartolo, Dingle Yandell (Thérèse 2022) as Don Basilio and Inna Husieva as Berta.
This revival is sung in an English translation by Amanda Holden (Falstaff 2021), and tells the story of barber and fixer, Figaro, who’s enlisted by Rely Almaviva to woo the attractive Rosina. Nonetheless, he first has to take care of Rosina’s guardian Physician Bartolo who retains her underneath lock and key with the intent of marrying her himself.
The Barber of Seville is supported by The Scottish Opera Syndicate.
In February 2024, the UK premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Marx in London! takes place at Theatre Royal Glasgow, earlier than transferring to Edinburgh. The manufacturing is directed by Stephen Barlow (who final labored with the Firm on Dove’s Flight), with libretto by Charles Hart, and set designs by Yannis Thavoris.
David Parry conducts Roland Wooden (Il trittico 2023) as Karl Marx, alongside Paula Sides and William Morgan, final seen collectively in 2022 in Scottish Opera’s five-star manufacturing of Candide. They’re joined by Orla Boylan (Breaking the Waves 2020) Lucy Schaufer (The Diary of One Who Disappeared 2020), Alasdair Elliot (The Miserly Knight 2022), Jamie MacDougall (Il trittico 2023) and Paul Hopwood.
Initially written for the 2 hundredth Anniversary of Karl Marx’s beginning, Marx in London! is ready in 1871 over the course of a single summer season’s day, and is an examination of the thinker’s extra human facet. The spectre of communism is perhaps haunting Europe, however Marx’s demons are much more mundane and nearer to dwelling, and his private life is in chaos. Watched by a spy, chased by debt collectors, harried by his household (official and never), and rescued repeatedly from monetary break by Friedrich Engels, audiences can count on a madcap manufacturing stuffed with zany humour.
Marx in London! is supported by The Alexander Gibson Circle and Scottish Opera’s New Commissions Circle.
Audiences in Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh have the prospect to expertise a revival of Sir David McVicar’s La traviata in Could and June 2024. This treasured manufacturing, which started life at Scottish Opera in 2008, has continuously been seen on the homes of co-producers Teatro Actual Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Welsh Nationwide Opera.
Stuart Stratford conducts Hye-Youn Lee (Carmen 2023) within the function of courtesan Violetta Valéry who throws herself right into a doomed love affair with the idealistic Alfredo, sung by Ji-Min Park. Set in hedonistic Paris in the course of the Belle Époque, the luscious design of this devastating Verdi tragedy is by Tanya McCallin. Reviving Sir David McVicar’s unique manufacturing is director is Leo Castaldi.
La traviata is supported by Scottish Opera’s ‘Play a Supporting Function’ Enchantment.
In March 2024, Stuart Stratford conducts The French Assortment. Few cities noticed as a lot innovation and artistic output in opera as Paris did in the course of the nineteenth century. With three main opera homes and composers from France and additional overseas vying for a coveted premiere at one (or extra) of them, French opera comprises an enormous number of musical and dramatic kinds as its artists pushed boundaries on stage and within the pit. This live performance contains excerpts from a number of the period’s grandest and most beloved operas in addition to its rarer gems that deserve a second listening to, together with works by Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet.
The Orchestra of Scottish Opera captures the vivacity and grandeur of this uniquely sensible musical epoch, accompanying a primary price group of singers to be introduced later this yr. This night time of romance, drama and delightful music shall be carried out in Caird Corridor, Dundee and Glasgow Royal Live performance Corridor.
The French Assortment is supported by Buddies of Scottish Opera and The Scottish Opera Endowment Belief.
Opera Highlights
Opera Highlights goes on the highway once more visiting 35 venues round Scotland, in a vibrant new manufacturing directed by Laura Attridge (The Miserly Knight and Mavra 2022) with designs by the internationally famend Ana Inés Jabares-Pita.
The troupe of gifted singers performing on this one-of-a-kind present are Katy Thomson, Katherine Aitken, Harmless Masuku and Jerome Knox within the autumn manufacturing, which travels to Giffnock, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Strathmiglo, Newtonmore, Lossiemouth, Ardross, Thurso, Lochinver, Arisaig, Seil Island, Tillicoultry, Glasgow, Dumfries, Crawfordjohn, Maybole, and Musselburgh.
Within the spring, Scottish Opera’s 2023/24 Rising, and Affiliate, Artists Inna Husieva, Lea Shaw, Monwabisi Lindi and Ross Cumming tour to Greenock, Stirling, Ardrishaig, Blairgowrie, Peterhead, Aboyne, Strathpeffer, Tongue, Stornoway, Poolewe, Dornie, Ballachulish, Tobermory, Johnstone, Middleton, Duns, St Andrews and Largs.
Accompanying them on piano are Music Administrators Toby Hession (autumn) and James Longford (spring).
Opera Highlights is supported by Buddies of Scottish Opera, Forteviot Charitable Belief and Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Belief.
Scottish Opera Younger Firm
This July at Scottish Opera’s Manufacturing Studios in Glasgow, Barrfields Theatre in Largs and Stirling’s Albert Halls, 4 immersive performances of Henry McPherson’s Maud, and Kurt Weill’s Down within the Valley, shall be carried out by Scottish Opera’s Younger Firm, directed by Flora Emily Thomson. Aged 17 to 21, the 11 members of the Firm rehearse all year long with Creative Director Chris Grey, who additionally conducts, to current this thought-provoking double invoice, which strikes between centuries. The operas are linked by a single Hebridean-inspired set, designed by Finlay McLay.
Maud, by composer, improviser and trainer, Henry McPherson, is a contemporary retelling of a standard folks story. It obtained its premiere in 2018 at Glasgow’s SWG3 as a winner of Scottish Opera’s Opera Sparks competitors.
It’s carried out alongside composer Kurt Weill’s and librettist Arnold Sundgaard’s magical and menacing folk-inspired opera Down within the Valley, a bittersweet coming-of-age story exhibiting the sunshine and darkness of 1 claustrophobic group.
Scottish Opera Younger Firm gives younger singers a singular and sensible introduction to the world of opera and the prospect to develop their expertise by means of a year-long programme, working with a spread of opera professionals. The Firm most not too long ago premiered Gareth Williams’ and Johnny McKnight’s acclaimed manufacturing of Rubble final summer season.
Maud and Down within the Valley are supported by Scottish Opera’s New Commissions Circle, Scottish Opera’s Training Angels, the Leverhulme Belief, Professor Richard Rose and Gordon Fraser Charitable Belief.
Pop-up Opera
This summer season Scottish Opera’s common Pop-up Opera tour kicks off on 27 Could on the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Competition, with 30-minute reveals for all of the household, together with A Little Little bit of Die Fledermaus and A Little Little bit of Eugene Onegin.
Expertise opera on a miniature scale with performances dropped at life by a storyteller, singers, instrumentalists, narration and vibrant illustrations. Touring to Sanquhar, Moniaive, Linlithgow, Blantyre, Springburn, Stornoway, Dornoch, Strathpeffer, Cruden Bay and Dundee, schoolchildren also can sit up for the tour popping up in main colleges throughout these areas totally free performances of Puffy MacPuffer and the Crabbit Canals, which has narration by Allan Dunn, music and lyrics by Marion Christie and illustrations by Iain Piercy.
A really perfect alternative for anybody new to opera to strive a taster of those classics by Strauss II and Tchaikovsky, a sequence of vibrant illustrations assist information audiences by means of the plot. Cleverly re-scored by Scottish Opera’s former Head of Music, Derek Clark, they’re carried out by storyteller Allan Dunn alongside singers Jessica Leary and Andrew McTaggart, cellists Andrew Drummond Huggan and Sonia Cromarty, and guitarists Sasha Savaloni and Ian Watt (Ainadamar 2022).
Pop-up Opera is supported by Buddies of Scottish Opera and JTH Charitable Belief.
Rising Artists
The Scottish Opera Rising Artists programme gives younger expertise a interval of full-time work with the Firm to assist launch their careers. This season they embrace returning mezzo-soprano Lea Shaw (Il trittico 2023) as Affiliate Artist, together with Ukrainian soprano Inna Husieva, South African tenor Monwabisi Lindi, and Scottish baritone Ross Cumming. The costume trainee and repetiteur are nonetheless to be introduced.
Rising Artist singers carry out in quite a lot of this season’s productions and excursions, and in recitals on the College of Glasgow and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. They’re supported by Scottish Opera’s Rising Artist Benefactors and Elizabeth Salvesen.
Scottish Opera Training and Outreach
In spring and summer season 2024, the ever-popular Major Faculties Tour for youngsters in primaries 5 to seven is the newly created present Vikings! The Quest for the Dragon’s Treasure. Vikings! will be facilitated with an in-person workshop day led by Scottish Opera instructing artists, with full rental of props and costumes, or fully inside the classroom by lecturers themselves. In each, lecturers obtain supplies prematurely.
How The Dragon Was Made is an interactive efficiency challenge for all 27 Confucius Institute classroom hub colleges, designed to discover Chinese language tradition and language by means of music and visible arts. Senior main courses use the digital sources to create their very own performances that introduce one in all China’s most historical folks tales to the youngest pupils.
This yr, Scottish Opera additionally gives instructing sources for Secondary Faculty pupils. Having labored alongside Largs Academy to develop the supplies appropriate for younger folks, The Elixir of Love: Three Methods to Stage an Opera is a free instructing useful resource for lecturers. Pupils will study music, drama, and artwork and design – incorporating parts of historical past, storytelling, and important considering – as they discover Donizetti’s comedy by means of three interpretations.
Scottish Opera continues to supply its Reminiscence Spinners challenge for these residing with dementia. The free challenge makes use of music, storytelling, motion, and visible arts to assist Glasgow-based folks residing with dementia get artistic and kind new help networks. All through every eight-week time period, they share reminiscences which are then integrated right into a relaxed efficiency for family and friends.
Reminiscence Spinners is supported by The RS MacDonald Charitable Belief, Sylvia Aitken Charitable Belief, Bellahouston Bequest Fund, Trades Home of Glasgow (Commonwealth Fund), and Scottish Opera’s Training Angels.
The bottom-breaking on-line programme, Breath Cycle, was shaped with the Respiratory and Cystic Fibrosis Drugs group at NHS Glasgow. Designed to profit these residing with situations affecting lung well being – significantly Lengthy COVID – free sources introduce members to vocal workout routines and respiratory methods. The response is overwhelmingly optimistic, with members citing enchancment in respiratory, power ranges and temper. To seek out out extra, please go to our web site, the place you possibly can entry a sequence of quick tutorials and workout routines, or join weekly on-line classes and music writing workshops.
‘The Covid Composer’s Songbook’, a choice of songs written by Breath Cycle members, has been recorded for anybody to make use of and luxuriate in. Go to Scottish Opera’s web site to obtain the total assortment.
Supported by The Scottish Authorities, Cruach Belief, The Murdoch Forrest Charitable Belief, W M Mann Basis, Souter Charitable Belief and Scottish Opera’s Training Angels
Scottish Opera continues its fruitful partnership with Disney Musicals in Faculties. Collaborating with main colleges with no earlier engagement with the humanities and sometimes dealing with a spread of social and financial challenges, instructing artists information pupils by means of rehearsals for particular diversifications of Disney musicals and supply coaching for lecturers to construct their pupils’ expertise and confidence by means of efficiency arts, making a sustainable arts legacy for the long run. The Firm not too long ago labored with Disney and pupils from St Anthony’s Major Faculty in Renfrewshire, to current the primary official Frozen youngsters present outdoors of America. The efficiency was a part of a three-day workshop with over 600 pupils from 11 colleges who carried out songs from Aladdin, The Jungle Guide and The Lion King in addition to Frozen.
Scottish Opera’s Opera in Faculties programme is supported by Harbinson Charitable Belief, David & June Gordon Memorial Belief, Hayward Sanderson Belief, Scottish Opera’s Training Angels and JTH Charitable Belief.
Locations can be found in Scottish Opera’s Neighborhood Choir, open to adults of all ages and carried out by Katy Lavinia Cooper, which begins up once more in September. The choir sings a combination of opera, classical, common, folks and world music, and meets each Wednesday.
The Neighborhood Choir is supported by Scottish Opera’s Training Angels.
Accessible Performances
Scottish Opera is providing a spread of accessible performances, to make sure everybody has the chance to get pleasure from a reside opera expertise that’s inclusive and welcoming. With Entry Opera performances and audio-description out there this yr, the Firm goals to make it as straightforward as potential to attend the opera.
Specifically created Entry performances of The Barber of Seville and La traviata run alongside the mainstage productions in Glasgow and Edinburgh. With Dementia Pleasant values at their core, afternoon Entry performances are for individuals who get pleasure from a extra relaxed opera expertise. With a shorter operating time (underneath two hours together with an interval) and tickets at simply £10, these audio-described performances are open to all, together with those that could also be residing with dementia or Lengthy COVID, extra comfy at a shorter present, struggling to get to night performances, or would merely profit from the extra relaxed ambiance.
Those that are visually impaired also can reap the benefits of audio-described performances of all three important stage productions – The Barber of Seville, Marx in London! and La traviata – the place a reside commentary is offered by a specialist audio describer in the course of the present, describing the motion on stage with out compromising the music. As a part of the expertise, a recorded introduction to the opera is accessible prematurely, in addition to a reside audio introduction earlier than the beginning of the efficiency.
Pre-show talks are additionally out there. These half-hour classes delve into the element of every opera, enhancing the viewers enjoyment and increasing information of the piece.
Additional info on the 2023/24 Season will be discovered at www.scottishopera.org.uk
Tickets go on sale from 1 June.
