Stuart Stratford trained at St Petersburg under the legendary teacher Ilya Musin. His love of Russian music is well known, and it is perhaps surprising that he has conducted so little with Scottish Opera, at least in terms of full-scale stagings of Rimsky-Korsakov, Musorgsky or Shostakovich. He did at least give us concert performances of the three Rachmaninov pieces.
This programme of excerpts is at least promising. The company did at least stage Eugene Onegin back in 2018, directed by Oliver Mears, who is now at Covent Garden - though it is hard to think of the title role as a hero, more of a cad or bounder.
Excerpts are promised from two other works. Iolanta is a lovely opera, the composer's last, first played here by Opera North at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992. Since then it has been done twice in concert versions, by the RSNO (beautifully conducted by Alexander Lazarev in 2004) and by Scottish Opera - Stuart Stratford led an excellent performance in 2017.
The Maid of Orleans is even more of a rarity. The Bolshoi brought it to Glasgow during the 1990 Year of Culture. It will be good to encounter it again. Joan of Arc is undoubtedly the heroine here
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.
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