Opera Scotland

Heure espagnole 2025Scottish Opera

Read more about the opera Heure espagnole

For Scottish Opera, with no booking at the Edinburgh Festival this year, the 2025/26 season kicked off with an attractive double bill of one-act comedies.  The company last performed Ravel's L'Heure espagnole, away back in its second season, 1963.  Then it was paired with a contrastingly serious work by a still living Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola - Night Flight (Volo di notte).

This time round, the companion piece was Sir William Walton's comedy The Bear, based on a Chekhov story. Of the great British twentieth century composers, Scottish Opera has done plenty of Britten's operas, as well as two by Tippett, but this was the first time anything by Walton had been scheduled - an omission long overdue for filling.

The conductor, Alexandra Cravero, made a hugely positive impression in 2022 as a very late replacement conducting Massenet's Thérèse.  That piece was one of Massenet's last operas, premiered in 1907, where L'heure espagnole, launched in 1911, was Ravel's first stage work. Ravel and Walton suited her just as well, and she brought out the wonderful detail in Ravel's sly orchestration.  The director was new, but with wide experience working on the continent and at Glyndebourne.  He brought just the right lightness of touch to Ravel's farcical comedy.

The simple set worked well, with the two outsize clocks looking surprisingly coffin-like and bulky, while being light enough for Ramiro to lift.

The excellent cast included veteran tenor and broadcaster Jamie MacDougall as the long-suffering clock-maker, with company regular Lea Shaw as his errant wife.  The other three parts, tenor, baritone and bass, were all taken by the latest members of the company's Emerging Artists scheme, beautifully characterised and clearly all thoroughly enjoying themselves.  It is always stimulating to be able to see how these talents progress - Lea Shaw was herself one not long ago.

At the third of the four performances the audience (not as full as it should have been) lapped up the delightful treat.

 

Scottish Opera's programme for 2025/26

The most obvious novelty is a world premiere with a uniquely Japanese theme. The Great Wave has music by Dai Fujikura and a text by Harry Ross with a central theme derived from the famous print by Hokusai.

The season opens with new productions of an interesting double bill of works by two great twentieth century masters, Maurice Ravel and William Walton.  Scottish Opera did give us L'Heure espagnole as long ago as 1963, the company's second season, but Walton's operas, including his late comedy The Bear, have been conspicuous omissions.

As usual two popular favourites are given extended runs that include performances in Aberdeen and Inverness, as well as Glasgow and Edinburgh.  The autumn revival is Renaud Doucet and André Barbe's thoroughly enjoyable staging of La bohème, first seen in 2017.  The spring tour is one of the company's best productions, first seen in 2010 - Sir Thomas Allen's visionary interpretation of The Marriage of Figaro, which he is returning to work on.

There is a long-awaited return to the works of Wagner, with two concert performances of Tristan und Isolde, while a concert programme of excerpts this year is centred on Tchaikovsky.

The company's small-scale activities continue with autumn and spring tours of a Highlights programme.  The Pop-Up Opera series also continues to spread the length and breadth of the country.