Stirling to welcome pop-up opera show this week

Following the Scottish Government’s update on 20 August to the route map out of the Covid-19 crisis, Scottish Opera is delighted to announce the Pop-up Opera roadshow, with three brilliant free shows on offer.

These are cleverly re-written 25-minute versions of the full operas, A Little Bit of Don Giovanni and A Little Bit of The Gondoliers, while The Song of The Clyde has been created especially for families.

The tour will kick off on Friday 4 September at The Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock before travelling to a number of locations around Scotland including Stirling's Albert Hall this Thursday, September 10.

The shows are performed in a specially adapted trailer to create a portable stage to adhere with social distancing guidelines. While past productions of Pop-up Operas have accommodated both the audience and performers inside the mobile Theatre Royal trailer, this year performances are al fresco with a covered stage and audiences out front in the open air, seated in social/household bubbles.

The shows are brought to life by storyteller Allan Dunn, singers Sarah Power, Stephanie Stanway, Aidan Edwards and Andrew McTaggart, instrumentalists Andrew Drummond

Huggan, Sasha Savaloni and Ian Watt, and a series of colourful illustrations by Tim Gravestock, Otto Von Beech and Iain Piercy.

Whilst the performers will be on the stage of a trailer, audiences will sit outside physically distanced from each other, according to the latest guidance from the Scottish Government.

Arranged by Derek Clark, Scottish Opera’s Head of Music, A Little Bit of Don Giovanni offers highlights from Mozart’s classic dark tale of seduction. The Don sets his sights on Donna Anna, and when her father intervenes, it costs him his life and Don Giovanni must flee. But as the shadows close in and the mistakes of his past begin to catch up with him, the Don’s tangled web of lies and betrayal begins to unravel.

One of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most popular comic operas has been whittled down by Derek Clark to create A Little Bit of The Gondoliers. Originally planned to complement Scottish Opera’s mainstage production of The Gondoliers which was due to tour Scotland and London earlier this year, the whimsical opera tells the story of two happy-go-lucky gondoliers in Venice who discover that one of them is, in fact, heir to the throne of a distant kingdom.

The Song of the Clyde, composed by Karen MacIver with words by Allan Dunn, tells the story of one of Scotland’s most famous rivers. Audiences are invited to journey back in time and place, tracing the history of the Clyde from ancient times to the present day. Songs and stories tell of the generations who lived and worked along its banks, as it winds a path from its source high in the hills of South Lanarkshire down through the Clyde Valley to Glasgow and further onwards to the ‘tail of the bank’ near Greenock – the deepest estuary waters in Britain.

Scottish Opera’s director of outreach and education, Jane Davidson said: "Scottish Opera’s Pop-up tour is even more delighted than ever to be out and about across the country, performing a selection of miniature gems from the opera repertoire.

"Alongside the dark and powerful tale of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, you will be transported to Venice to observe the complicated love lives of two lads who make their living on the waterways of that most romantic of cities in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers.

"Continuing with the watery theme, a new show for families with younger children; The Song of The Clyde, traces the history that sprang up along the banks of one of Scotland’s most famous rivers from ancient times right up to the present day. As once was said, Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow."