Scottish tenor David Douglas first launched the Scots Opera Project - complete with community chorus - in Ayr back in 2015, billed as the Ayrshire Opera Experience. He had recently returned from a period working in France. His high-lying tenor voice is particularly suited to the music of the French baroque, 17th century composers such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Baptiste Lully, whose works were championed by William Christie and his group Les Arts Florissants, with which Douglas worked. Christie brought his memorable production to the Edinburgh Festival in 1985.
Charpentier's short opera Actéon was the first work the Project performed in Scots translation, and it was a great success, with David Douglas giving an excellent account of the title role.
The plot derives from Greek mythology. Actaeon, a young huntsman. is out with his hounds, hunting for deer. In a forest clearing he encounters the goddess Diana and her attendant nymphs bathing. Their fury is so intense that Diana changes him into a stag, so poor Actaeon is torn to pieces by his own hounds.
The music is subtle and atmospheric (not as violent as one might expect) and it was good to see it being revived in this charmingly reduced scoring. The music director was Esther Swift, who played the harp, along with Claire Telford (violin).
The original plan for Pitlochry was to perform Actéon as a promenade production in the Explorers Garden, adjacent to the theatre. However Storm Floris had recently caused severe damage to the garden, closing it for a while. Thankfully the damage seems to have been made good in time for the performances.
Nevertheless, the Scottish summer can still be a risky prospect for open-air opera. On Saturday 30 August, two performances were given, at 1pm and 5pm. The lunch-time session must have been fine. However for most of the afternoon a steady drizzle took over. The fabulous view over to Ben-y-Vrackie still existed, but the mountaintop was obscured by cloud. Some adaptation of the production was required to protect instruments and soloists, and the sound of the gentle precipitation was a continuous background to the performance.
The promenade element was reduced, with the chorus, led by solo tenor, starting by guiding the audience up a winding path through the woods. We eventually reached a pavilion where the audience and chorus formed an arc inside the pleasant, dry, timbered structire. It had a balcony with a canopy - also dry as there was absolutely no wind - and the main drama unfolded.
Diane (Colleen Nicoll) and her attendant nymphs presented themselves essentially as three Graces, assisted by Juno, here a travesti role sung by baritone Colin Murray. No scenery was required, with beautiful natural woodland in the background, and costumes were attractively classical in style. The combination of the two instruments made a charming effect. David Douglas repeated his superbly clear-voiced interpretation of the title role, and he was given a highly effective stag's head mask for the final transformation, when the chorus also moved out to the balcony.
This was a brief and highly enjoyable encounter with a charming opera still rarely met with. The audience clearly enjoyed it. It even included a dog patiently enduring the stroll in the rain and able to doze in the shelter of the pavilion. A very gentle beast, there was just a single bark as the applause began - certainly no indication that he had read the plot or was aware of the important role taken by hounds at the dénouement.
Continuing the animal theme, the company was also giving further performances of The Seal-Woman - an operatic folk-tale from the 1920s with text by Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser and music by Granville Bantock. The Project team first presented this at the 2023 Perth Festival. It was to be performed in the amphitheatre, also part of the Explorers Garden, with accompaniment of piano, violin and harp.
© Copyright Opera Scotland 2025
Site by SiteBuddha