Scottish Opera goes back to the 70s for autumn tour

SINGERS from Scottish Opera are preparing to step back in time to the 1970s for their autumn tour, which starts on Thursday.

Four performers from the company will visit 17 venues throughout Scotland.

This autumn’s tour is part of the 60th anniversary celebrations for Scottish Opera, which has pledged to visit more than 60 communities during its birthday year.

The two-hour show includes operatic highlights from Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Verdi’s Macbeth, and Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers duet.

The excerpts are woven together into a story that involves the cast – wearing 1970s-inspired customers – being transported to “another world” where anything is possible.

The cast consists of Scottish Opera’s 2022-23 emerging artists – Zoe Drummond and Osian Wyn Bowen – alongside Christopher Nairne and Shakira Tsindos, led from the piano by Scottish Opera’s 2022-23 emerging artist tutor Kristina Yorgova.

The production also features the world premiere of a new piece by Scottish Opera 2021-22 emerging artist and composer Toby Hession, with words by Scottish Opera director Emma Jenkins.

Entitled Told By An Idiot, the piece is a modern re-working of Macbeth.

Jenkins said: “Four young singers in search of an identity find themselves, like Alice in Wonderland or the children of Narnia, propelled along an operatic rollercoaster of love and loss, devotion and desire, jealousy and jubilation.

“The overriding theme of the Opera Highlights is ‘love’ in all its forms, both positive and negative.

“Our singers put on and take off various roles as if possessed by the force of love in a fast-paced performance that celebrates not only the voice, but also ensemble work and physical theatre.

“All this against the backdrop of Janis Hart’s stunning design, which combines a retro 70s feel with an anarchic theatrical space in which one feels that anything could happen.”

The show will visit Dundee, Markinch, Fraserburgh, Forres, Banchory, Cullivoe, Lerwick, Linlithgow, Town Yetholm, Stranraer, Castle Douglas, Dunlop, Gartmore, Biggar, Lochailort, Gairloch, and Durness.

Read more news and reviews on Scottish Field’s culture pages.

Plus, don’t miss an interview with fiddle makers Colin and Findlay Tulloch in October’s luxury issue of Scottish Field magazine.