THROUGHOUT the Covid-19 pandemic stage artists across Scotland have been finding innovative ways to engage with their audiences, despite the closure of the theatres. No company has been more committed to this noble project than Scottish Opera.
Our national opera company’s pandemic offerings have included acclaimed films of Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Indeed, during a slight loosening in coronavirus restrictions, they even presented a brilliant, physically distanced live production of Puccini’s La bohème, which was performed in the car park of the company’s Glasgow studios.
Now, as we look forward to a progressively more vaccinated, increasingly “normal” future, the company has announced an exciting programme of filmed and live shows to take us from spring and into summer. There will be two films, Live In South Lanarkshire (which premieres on April 23) and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (which will start streaming online on June 18).
The live work will come in the shape of Pop-Up Opera in outdoor venues around the country and a major, outdoor production of Verdi’s comic opera Falstaff.
The last live indoor performance Scottish Opera presented was an Opera Highlights show, staged shortly before the first lockdown, in the splendid surroundings of Rutherglen Town Hall. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that the company should kick-off its new season with a recorded performance at that iconic venue.
Filmed on March 24, the show offers highlights from Bizet’s Carmen, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, as well as operatic snippets from such great composers as Mozart and Puccini.
Following on from that, the company will launch the film of L’elisir d’amore. Roxana Haines, the woman behind last year’s screen version of Così fan tutte, will tackle Donizetti’s comedic melodrama of love across the boundaries of social class.
Superb though Scottish Opera’s filmed work has been during the pandemic, its latest online offerings can only function as theatrical starters, mere tasters for the main, live productions to follow. The first will be Pop-Up Operas, carefully truncated presentations of pieces by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Taking to the road on June 8 (Covid restrictions allowing), the company hopes to reach more than 12,000 people throughout Scotland with its 25-minute versions of The Gondoliers, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and Iolanthe.
Then, on a date yet to be confirmed, comes the big one. Sir David McVicar will design and direct a large-scale, outdoor production of Verdi’s Falstaff.
The opera will be sung in English, in a translation by Amanda Holden (who also translated the libretto for last year’s glorious La bohème), and performed, like the Puccini, in Scottish Opera’s car park. It will be co-produced with outdoor opera specialists Santa Fe Opera of New Mexico, and will boast a wonderful cast, including Roland Wood and Elizabeth Llewellyn, both of whom performed in La bohème.
Scottish Opera’s general director, Alex Reedijk, said: “I am delighted that we are preparing to bring live music back to audiences following almost a year without live opera.
“Falstaff will be a love letter to our glorious art form, with over 120 people working together on the production. Sir David McVicar offers an amazing vision for our car park as he directs and designs an ingenious show with exquisite 17th-century period costumes, promising an evening of comedy, pathos and pure entertainment. We plan to be back in theatres presenting live opera as soon as restrictions allow, but in the meantime we are thrilled to be able to offer outdoor, live performances again.”
Given the company’s recent, Covid-era successes, it seems certain that audiences will be equally thrilled.
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