News

Cameron Presentations' sponsorship of Scottish Opera has been shortlisted for a 2010 Arts & Business Scotland Award in the New or Returning Sponsor category.

During Scottish Opera’s 2009/10 Season, Cameron Presentations provided in-kind sponsorship in the form of high specification projection equipment. This helped Scottish Opera fulfil its creative ambitions for two ground-breaking productions, The Italian Girl in Algiers and The Adventures of Mr Brouček.

The winner of this year's Arts and Business Scotland Awards will be announced at a ceremony on the 22 September at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Last year, Scottish Opera and principal sponsor relationship with sponsor and consulting partner, Accenture won the Cultural Branding Award at the 2009 Arts and Business Scotland Awards.

The sponsorship gave Cameron Presentations the opportunity to showcase its equipment in an innovative way to existing and prospective clients, employees and Scottish Opera’s audience, which added a new dimension to the company's marketing and PR strategy. This was the first time Cameron Presentations had sponsored an arts company.

Children from both Spanish and Italian Sing up Saturday classes gave a brilliant performance to family and friends at two special shows on Saturday.

The children, aged between 3 and 10 years old took to the stage to perform the Spanish and Italian they had learned through music, song, and dance.

The weekly classes are run by a small, handpicked team of singers, language teachers, and drama and arts specialists. Through song, games, art activities, drama, dance and more, they bring to life the music, language, culture and traditions of Spain and Italy, the home of opera.

Check out some of the photos of the performances below.

Scottish Opera's Wardrobe Department made a set of 25 dresses for The Welsh National Opera premiere of Meistersingers.

The dresses, which were designed by Buki Shiff and made by our Wardrobe Department for the ladies' chorus, were made in six varying styles.

Mandy Bryan, Scottish Opera's Ladies' Cutter, and Sara Löfgren, one of our costume-makers, visited the Millennium Centre in Cardiff to carry out fittings for the dresses.

A few familiar faces were at the chorus fittings including Scottish Opera regulars, Frances Morrison, Karen Murray and Shuna Sendall.

The team frequently take on outside commissions and have been working on this major project, as well as on our own forthcoming operas, since January.
 

A selection of the costumes.

Celebrate pantomime in Scotland with a special concert performance next week.

The event sees The Orchestra of Scottish Opera play live to rarely-seen archive silent film of 1930s and 1940s pantomime in Glasgow.

Hosted by Elaine C Smith, the evening will whisk you back to a golden age for Scottish theatre - a time of  glittering sets, popular stars like George West and Harry Gordon, comedy sketches and rows of dancing girls.

Hear a programme of recently rediscovered pantomime music composed for Glasgow's Royal Princess's Theatre in the 1920s and 1930s and played live publicly for the first time in over 60 years.

Thursday 24 June, 2.30pm &  7pm

Tickets only £3.

Book on 0141 287 5810.

Our Wardrobe and Wigs Department are working on a project for the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.

The project is being opened by the National Trust for Scotland.

John Liddell, Head of Wardrobe said,  'We are making a replica costume and wig, to re-create the appearance of the poet. Our Wigs Supervisor, Laurie Rankin and I visited the museum at Burns Cottage to take measurements for the wig.'

'The collection includes a cast of Burns' skull which was taken when his grave was opened at some point after his death, so the wig will be made exactly to the size of the poet's head.'

'Laurie usually takes measurements and a "wig-wrap" from singers as part of the process of making their wigs ; she had never previously done this for a dead person!'

'A wig-wrap is a mould which is created by covering the head with cling-film, and then adding many strips of sellotape on top of the cling-film to create a semi-rigid mould, which can then be carefully lifted off, and used to make a pattern for the wig base.'

'Then real human hair is knotted, one hair at a time, on to the net base. The finished "scalp" is then cut to the appropriate style, and dressed.'

'We were shown the precious cast of the skull by David Hopes, the Project Curator for the NTS ; Sylvia Krauss and and Mel Houston, the Project Conservators were in attendance to ensure that the skull suffered no damage in the process.'

'After the skull was covered with the film, Laurie was puzzled for a moment because the next stage is normally to mark on it the position of the ears and the hair-line. No ears on a skull!'

'By referring to portraits of Burns, however, she felt confident of recording the information needed.'

'The result was a perfect wig-wrap which will be used to make an accurate replica of the poet's hair.'
 

"Alas poor Yorick"

Click here to see Robert Burns' skull being wrapped

20 year old Emma Butchart started work with Scottish Opera today as a Costume and Wardrobe Apprentice.

Emma's role which sees her working with both Scottish Opera and the Citizens' Theatre is part of the Creative Apprentice scheme and is supported by the Scottish Arts Council through Creative & Cultural Skills.

Emma is currently balancing the demands of her Apprenticeship with an HND in Theatre Costume Interpretation at Telford College in Edinburgh and will take up the Apprenticeship full-time in June, working on Scottish Opera productions, Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro.

To learn more about Creative Apprenticeships in Scotland click here.

Our fantastic new season features The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen and Rigoletto and more. 

It also features inventive family works such as Dr Ferret and On the Rim of the World.

Check out the full programme on this website or via our new brochure. You can keep up to date with all of Scottish Opera's news and reviews via our enewsletter, Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Advance booking for subscriptions will open on Tuesday 1 June.

Public sales open on Monday 28 June.
 

BabyO - opera for babies - toured to packed (tiny) houses earlier this year.

The show will return to Glasgow and Edinburgh in the Autumn - more details to come. 

‘The ‘O’ is tongue-in-cheek shorthand for ‘opera’ – but actually it captures the expression of most of the audience’s babies’ faces, as, open-mouthed, they drink in the sights and sounds of this caringly structured sensory adventure.’ The Herald

Check out BabyO in action.

Check out what all the fuss is about...

BBC Radio 3 broadcast Scottish Opera's production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love on Wednesday 3 March.

The performance was recorded in November last year at Festival Theatre Edinburgh.

The production, directed by Giles Havergal and conducted by Francesco Corti, stars Elena Xanthoudakis as Adina, Edgaras Montvidas as Nemorino, Marcin Bronikowski as Belcore, Francesco Facini as Dulcamara, Sarah Redgwick as Gianetta, Chorus and of course, The Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

If you missed it, listen again here.