Music and Opera

Five operas to get their 15 minutes

31 Oct 2007

Scottish Opera has given an insight into five new 15-minute operas, which involve collaborations between Scotland’s top writing and musical talent. The works, which include contributions from popular authors Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin…

Russell Watson leaves intensive care after brain tumour

30 Oct 2007

Opera singer Russell Watson – who was admitted to hospital last week for emergency surgery on an ‘aggressive’ brain tumour – has been moved out of intensive care. The 40-year-old is now off the critical list at the Alexandra Hospital in Greater…

Russell Watson ‘critical’ after second brain tumour

26 Oct 2007

The popular opera tenor Russell Watson is critically ill after undergoing emergency surgery to remove a brain tumour for the second time in two years. The singer, known as The Voice, had been working in his recording studio on Wednesday when he…

Global tributes for Pavarotti

28 Sep 2007

A series of commemorations are to be held across the globe in honour of the late opera star Luciano Pavarotti. The tenor’s contribution to classical music will be celebrated by a number of concerts and exhibitions on October 6 - a month after he died…

The Barber of Seville

20 Sep 2007

She’s 31, he’s 62. She’s a young Scot at the start of her operatic career, he’s a singer who seems to have been at the top of his for ever. But in Scottish Opera’s new production of The Barber of Seville, it is not as singers that the two come together.

Tenors remember ‘a good friend and great poker player’

7 Sep 2007

Opera singers Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras have paid tribute to their fellow tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who lost his fight with pancreatic cancer on Thursday. The widely admired opera star performed in the Three Tenors concerts for more than 10…

Italian tenor Pavarotti dies at 71

6 Sep 2007

Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti has died at the age of 71 at his home in the Italian city of Modena after 40 years performing on stage. The singer was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, and did not make any public appearances after he had cancer…

Scottish theatre director to head Norwegian Opera

31 Aug 2007

A theatre director from Glasgow has been appointed to take control of Norwegian Opera, just as the company moves to a new opera house in Oslo. Paul Curran, who performed with Scottish Ballet in his early career and has staged performances across the…

Christine Brewer

23 Aug 2007

As comfortable chatting about American Idol as she is arias, Christine Brewer is swift to dispel any notion of the opera diva. Indeed, from the moment she burst onto the stage as a teenager with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Brewer knew she had…

Opera in concert – Dido and Aeneas and Prima La Musica, Poi Le Parole

23 Aug 2007

Opera at this year’s Festival has taken an interesting journey. The programme started with Bernstein’s Candide, chronologically the last of those heard, with Monteverdi’s glorious 400 year-old L’Orfeo hot on its heels. The latter was fully – and…

Capriccio

23 Aug 2007

At the start of the Festival, opera-goers were spirited back to the genre’s origins with a spectacular production of the first great opera, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Now, as things draw to a close, the opera on offer is one which poses questions to itself…

Scottish Opera appoints new director

News

9 Aug 2007

Italian conductor Francesco Corti signed up as new music director

Candide

9 Aug 2007

In setting up this year’s Opening Concert of the Edinburgh International Festival, Jonathan Mills has quickly ditched the tradition of a Sunday evening kick-off (although the St Giles’ Festival Service remains in place for the morning) and has brought…

The Turing Test

19 Jul 2007

Quite what Monteverdi would have thought about a singing computer featuring in an opera is anyone’s guess. Inspired by the famous test set by Alan Turing, founder of modern computer science, composer Julian Wagstaff has written a chamber opera to be…

Capriccio

19 Jul 2007

Richard Strauss’ final opera Capriccio, which received its premiere in 1942, is described by the composer as ‘a conversation piece for music’. A young countess cannot choose between two lovers, one a musician, the other a poet.

Scottish Opera: Lucia Di Lammermoor

7 May 2007

OPERA They have been described as wild, cheerless and bleak, but it is the landscape of the Lammermuirs, these low, rolling hills that characterize the area bounded by the Berwickshire coast, that provide the setting for Sir Walter Scott’s gothic…

Mr Mcfall’s Chamber

Mr Mcfall’s Chamber: An Everyday Occurrence

27 Mar 2007

NEW OPERA Even though 250 of them are featured in the classical listings in this issue of The List alone, the behind-the-scenes story of what it’s really like being an orchestral musician rarely gets much exposure away from the immediate ranks of…

Gianni Schicchi/L’heure espagnole

RSAMD Opera, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Fri 19 &Sat 2

15 Jan 2007

OPERA DOUBLE BILL USA and Canada, England and Wales, Sweden, Iceland, Singapore and Brazil are all countries that are fielding singers in the RSAMD’s comedy double bill of operas from Italy and France. Although a one-off blip means that Scotland is…

Scottish Opera: Tamerlano

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thu 16 & Sat 18 Nov; Festi

11 Nov 2006

OPERA Although Handel’s Tamerlano is one of the gems of Baroque opera, it is, oddly, very rarely performed. Or perhaps it’s not so odd, given that it is only relatively recently that such operas are gaining in renewed popularity. Conducting Scottish…

Orchestra of Scottish Opera

Orchestra of Scottish Opera

28 Sep 2006

CLASSICAL They may not be very visible when Scottish Opera is on the main stage, but the Orchestra of Scottish Opera is not one to shy away from appearing in public on their own so that audiences can get a chance to hear and see them a bit more…