Music, Opera

Scottish Opera: Orlando - Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Wed 16 Feb

Tim Mead, Sally Silver and Claire Booth star in Harry Fehr's WWII adaptation of Handel's opera

In setting Handel’s Orlando in a 1940s London hospital, young director Harry Fehr has been completely ingenious. Taken from Orlando Furioso, the Italian Renaissance epic which inspired three Handel operas, the tale is of Orlando, the great soldier of…

Scottish Opera and the RSAMD stage production of The Cunning Little Vixen

Janácek’s opera filled with perpetual themes of life, death and love

Building on collaborative achievements of the past few years, Scottish Opera and the RSAMD now turn to Janácek’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen. Set in a forest, its characters are both animal and human. Inspired by a comic strip from a newspaper, it’s…

Magnus Lindberg's Graffiti performed by RSNO

Finnish composer's orchestral study of Pompeii graffiti

With funding for culture in Italy facing the same challenges as ministerial budgets across Europe, the future of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which needs constant support for excavation and preservation, is uncertain. Numerous stray dogs reputedly…

Infant Opera BabyO is 30 minutes of melody, rhythm and harmony

Scottish Opera’s latest project is aimed at babies aged just 6-18 months

INFANT OPERA BABYO You’re never too young to enjoy a six-part harmony. That’s the theory behind Scottish Opera’s latest project, BabyO. Performed by three operatic singers, a bass, soprano and mezzo soprano, the show is aimed at babies aged just…

Philip Glass' opera In the Penal Colony tours UK

Disturbing chamber opera adaptation of Kafka

In its second year of celebrating the best in contemporary music and dance as the seasons change, the Traverse Theatre welcomes a return joint visit from Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera to open the 2010 Autumn Festival. With a new production of…

Scottish Opera: The Marriage of Figaro

Sir Thomas Allen moves from performing to directing

Poacher turned gamekeeper isn’t overly common in the world of opera, but one internationally famous singer who has successfully moved from performing to directing is Sir Thomas Allen. Bringing the same team who produced a hugely enjoyable Barber of…

Opera Bohemia

Talented new company's Fringe debut

As the name may suggest, Opera Bohemia’s title was inspired by the aspiring artist characters in Puccini’s La Bohéme. Founded by two former RSAMD students, Alistair Digges and Douglas Nairne, this new opera company is a wealth of extraordinary fresh…

Opera Australia brings Bliss to Edinburgh

An opera set in 1980s Australia explores a middle-aged ad-man’s mid-life crisis

Bliss. What is it? Perfect happiness? And who achieves it? Maybe not as many people as think they do. Sometimes a life that seems blissful may be far from it and the search has to start again. Enter Harry Joy, the main character in Australian author…

Tribute concert to Sir Charles Mackerras at EIF

Fantastic celebration of a wonderful man

One of the leading lights on the EIF, Sir Charles Mackerras has long been synonymous with the talent and the creativity at the heart of the Edinburgh International Festival. Fitting then, that they should celebrate his passing earlier this year with a…

Sarah Connolly

Mezzo soprano returns to jazz roots

Among other things, 2010 is likely to be memorable as the year of the mezzo-soprano at the Edinburgh International Festival. Joyce DiDonato, Petra Lang and Christine Brewer, who replaces the indisposed Susan Graham, are just three of the famous names…

Porgy and Bess takes centre stage at Edinburgh International Festival

Opéra de Lyon's production of Gershwins' crossover classic

As operas go, it’s fair to say that Porgy and Bess blew in like a hurricane. When George and Ira Gershwin’s self-styled ‘American folk opera’ featuring a libretto by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward appeared on the New York stage in 1935, its cast of…

American mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato returns to Edinburgh Festival

DiDonato performs Idomeneo and with David Zobel at EIF 2010

Last summer, mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato soldiered on with a broken leg in London and was plunged into darkness at the Usher Hall. Carol Main keeps everything crossed for the Kansas girl’s Edinburgh return

Further Edinburgh International Festival highlights 2010

Montezuma Carl Heinrich Graun’s opera about the Aztec leader who welcomed Spanish adventurers into his kingdom only for them to quickly get tore into the plundering and subjugation explores the clash of two very different worldviews. King’s Theatre…

An overview of the 2010 Edinburgh Festivals and their directors

What to expect from Edinburgh in August

Nowhere does a festival quite like Edinburgh, and even with the film folk having long moved out of August, there is more than plenty going on for lovers of art, literature, comedy, theatre, kids entertainment, music, dance and military displays. The…

Five:15 in twenty:10

The state of the economy is never far from the headlines these days, but as an opera subject it is somewhat unexpected. Not so in Scottish Opera’s latest batch of five short new operas. For the third year of the company’s bold commissioning strand…

La Bohème

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sat 27 Feb 2010

Two completely contrasting operas are on offer from Scottish Opera in the company’s spring foray to Edinburgh this year. Not that Edinburgh audiences are unfamiliar with Stewart Laing’s production of Puccini’s La bohème. First seen back in 2004, Laing’s…

Edinburgh, My Home: Jonathan Mills

Edinburgh International Festival director Jonathan Mills on the virtues and indiscretions of his adopted home

John Adams and Lee Breuer among Edinburgh International Festival 2010 highlights

As the programme is launched for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, we cast an eye over the highlights

The Knife (with Mt Sims and Planningtorock) - Tomorrow, in a Year

(Brille) Darwin’s discoveries get the ‘electro meets classical’ treatment in this experimental tribute opera. Fever Ray, or Silent Shout fans will find it requires lots more ‘uphill’ from the listener, but if you’re in a mood to indulge the…

RSAMD – War and Peace

In what must be their most ambitious opera project ever, the RSAMD present the premiere of the original version of Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace. Based on Tolstoy’s epic novel of the same name, the version of the opera which will be seen in Glasgow…

Scottish Opera –The Elixir of Love,

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sat 24 Oct

Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love is a feel-good opera with a lighthearted tale of true love triumphing against the silliness of the odds that come its way. With its predictable ‘all’s well that ends well’ outcome, Scottish Opera’s revival of Giles…

Music In The Digital Age

Technology's impact on the artform

To paraphrase the Creme Egg adverts, when it comes to music, how do you hear yours? Streaming over the internet? Nicking stuff from torrents on the web? A bag full of goodies from Fopp? Crates of obscure vinyl from your local specialist…

Scottish Opera: Italian Girl in Algiers

She takes a trip to Scotland too this autumn

Sun-kissed blondes in bikinis aren’t the usual types found on the world’s operatic stage. Especially bouncing up and down on a spacehopper. Scottish Opera’s new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers is a bit…

Actus tragicus

Bach in a dolls house

'I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.' Virginia Woolf's sentiment is one the characters in Actus tragicus might well understand - though her black humour would probably be lost on them. Filling the stage is an impressive…

Tragic endeavours: Staatsoper Stuttgart’s Actus Tragicus

Lifting the lid on one of the EIF's must-sees

Actus Tragicus. A presentation of tragedy. With that title, Stuttgart Opera’s production is hardly going to be a bundle of laughs. Yet, the sheer beauty of the Bach cantatas, which lie at the heart of this highly unusual synthesis of music and drama…