https://youtu.be/hHL0cTv_kus Music by Jonathan Dove Libretto by Charles Hart based on an original scenario by Jurgen R. Weber Conducted by David Parry Directed by Stephen Barlow Tickets from £22.50 ★★★★ Don’t tell the Nixon (in China) fans, but the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, bushes Red for the UK premiere of Jonathan Dove’s rambunctious farce Marx in London! Which runs at the venue … Continue reading Review: Scottish Opera – Marx in London! at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow
https://youtu.be/jKKg2w8VRbk Libretto by Cesare Sterbini, based on the play by Pierre Beaumarchais Conducted by Stuart Stratford Directed by Sir Thomas Allen Translation by Amanda Holden Tickets from £23.00 ★★★★ Clean-shaven, refreshed, and with a splash of scent and a cheeky grin, Scottish Opera’s triumphant re-staging of The Barber of Seville arrives in Edinburgh after a successful opening in … Continue reading The Barber of Seville – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Music by Arthur Sullivan Libretto by W.S. Gilbert Directed by Hannah Spencer ★★★ The University of St Andrews’ Gilbert and Sullivan Society returned to the Byre Theatre with The Gondoliers. Sullivan’s score is complex and beautiful, and Gilbert’s storyline is deliciously convoluted. Many years ago, two brothers, Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri, were mixed up at birth … Continue reading The Gondoliers – The Byre Theatre, St. Andrews
Co-Created and Performed by Andrea Directed by John Paul McGroarty Composed by Howard Moody ★★★ Traversing the global history of musical heritage is a gloriously enormous undertaking. Especially when one considers the atrocities of our shared history, but from the most painful of circumstances, the surviving hope is often that of music. And flourishing out … Continue reading Tales of Transatlantic Freedom – Greenside @ Nicholson Square
Text by Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with Elisabeth HauptmanMusic by Kurt WeillDirected by Barrie Kosky Musical Direction by Adam Benzwi ★★★★★ Premiering in 1928, choke-holding the genre into a new way of looking, The Threepenny Opera still possesses that overnight sensational approach it had all those decades ago. Berlocj Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s operatic still, in ways, is a game … Continue reading The Threepenny Opera – Festival Theatre
Written by Isobel McArthur Directed by Gareth Nicholls ★★★★★ In looking at the grandeur of opera and an addictive fixation on the nostalgic, Isobel McArthur stumbles into an entirely new genre-hybrid: romantic farce, part operatic, and part supernatural mystery. For much of our stay at the hotel, it feels pleasant, if pedestrian. Giddy but not … Continue reading The Grand Old Opera House Hotel – Traverse Theatre
https://youtu.be/1ydKle2a-Vk Composed by Georges Bizet Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, Directed by John Fulljames ★★★★ Madama Butterfly to Carmen. Sixty years championing Opera within Scotland. Facing financial and global challenges, Scottish Opera remains a force in the cultural zeitgeist of the nation. With the influx of younger audiences and economic accessibility for others, Scottish Opera continues to be … Continue reading Scottish Opera: Carmen – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Composed by Granville Bantock Composition and Libretto by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser Directed by David Douglas Musical Direction by Hebba Benyaghla ★★★★ In the brisk winds of an uninhabited islet in the Western Isles, a Cailleach, Scot’s crone, croons into the emptiness of the world – singing of local legend, that of the seals which transform into … Continue reading The Seal-Woman – Scottish Storytelling Centre
Libretto & Music by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan Directed by Fraser Grant Choreography and Assistant Direction by Sally Franks Musical Direction by Kathleen Davie ★★★★ Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group reimagine the well-known and loved Gilbert & Sullivan classic H.M.S Pinafore as a light-hearted comedic cabaret. The cast, crew and musicians take the audience on a … Continue reading H.M.S. Pinafore – Bedlam Theatre
https://youtu.be/cg8GdNDf7Nc Composed by Giacomo Puccini Directed by Sir David McVicar Conducted by Stuart Stratford ★★★★★ The idea of remaining faithful to the artist's intentions is, for some producers, not always the first thing on their mind in staging a lengthy or composite collection of works. For Puccini, there was no other way to demonstrate the … Continue reading Il Trittico – Festival Theatre
