Scottish Opera filmed and outdoor performances

Published: 14 April 2021
Reporter: Vera Liber

Scottish Opera Credit: Scottish Opera

Scottish Opera will present a new outdoor production of Verdi’s Falstaff, five pop-up Gilbert & Sullivan shows, Roxana Haines directs the latest Scottish Opera: On Screen.

Scottish director Sir David McVicar, who last worked with Scottish Opera on Pelléas and Mélisande, returns to design and direct an outdoor production of Verdi’s Falstaff in the company’s Edington Street car park in Glasgow, and anticipates announcing further dates in Edinburgh. This co-production with Santa Fe Opera, sung in English in a translation by Amanda Holden, features a cast including Roland Wood, Elizabeth Llewellyn, Phillip Rhodes, Elgan Llŷr Thomas, Gemma Summerfield, Louise Winter, Sioned Gwen Davies, Jamie MacDougall, Aled Hall and Alastair Miles.

In summer, Scottish Opera's Pop-up Opera tours with five bite-size Gilbert & Sullivan shows, 25-minute performances of A Little Bit of… The Gondoliers, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and Iolanthe. There are plans to be on the road by 8 June, subject to Scottish Government guidelines, in two specially-adapted trailers at a variety of surprising venues across Scotland. The final leg of the tour, running throughout September, will offer a double bill of shows including the Pirates of Penzance and a revival of A Little Bit of Bubble McBea, aimed at children in Primary 1 to 3, raising awareness of sea pollution in the run-up to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

Roxana Haines directs Donizetti’s L'elisir d'amore as part of the Scottish Opera: On Screen programme, which will be filmed at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal on 22 May 2021 and be available to watch on the Scottish Opera web site from 18 June. BBC Radio Scotland will features audio excerpts from the performance as part of a special Classics Unwrapped on Sunday 13 June. It will feature Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists Catriona Hewitson, Shengzhi Ren and Arthur Bruce alongside guest principals Roland Wood, Elena Garrido Madrona and an 18-strong chorus.

On Friday 23 April, Live in South Lanarkshire, a film of operatic favourites performed at Rutherglen Town Hall inn 2020, will be available to watch on Scottish Opera’s web site. Scottish Opera’s Head of Music Derek Clark is joined by Emerging Artists Margo Arsane and Catriona Hewitson for a playlist including Bizet’s Carmen, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and more from the likes of Puccini, Mozart and Delibes.

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