Opera

Based on Sheridan’s libretto for The Duenna, this wacky but very human comedy celebrates all that is young love.

Lovers of live performances are wonderful!  They breast the wayward rain and brace the gales to appreciate their chosen art form and on Wednesday 29 December, the elements were fierce enough t

When the curtain lifted for the first time, we saw Simon Higlett’s very realistic set of the front of houses and places of business of a street in Seville around the time Rossini wrote his opera in 1816. This was good, and it got better as the story began to unfold on the street, before the action moved to the inside of Dr Bartolo’s house.

The Hebrides Ensemble has just announced the Expanding Horizons Season 2011-12 moving from  Edinburgh and Glasgow to Perth, Inverness and Argyll.

Inaugural Gala Christmas Concert held by Epilepsy Scotland & The Institute of Directors is feast of Christmas music, opera, readings and traditional carols for all.

The Edinburgh International Festival may have come first, but generally it's the Fringe that Edinburgh is best-known for. There's really nothing quite like it - "the largest show on Earth".

The stats bear that out: the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe saw 41,689 performances of 2,542 shows in 258 Fringe venues. It's a sprawling, anarchic, sleepless month of live performances. There were also 607 free shows at the 2011 Fringe.

Matthew Richardson’s new Rigoletto for Scotish Opera begins in the Duke’s Palace where there is a party in progress. The set is modest, rather boring, but the performers tell us what is going on.

Intermezzo tells the tale of a husband mistakenly unfaithful who is accused by a bossy wife who has double standards. The tale is that of Richard Strauss and his wife and is set in 1924 when it was first performed.

The Mikado contains perhaps the wittiest of Gilbert’s lyrics and this production was a spirited, lively and pacey rendition. The plot is a bizarre blend of the surreal with the real, where pompous officials act with an arbitrary logic, somewhat reminiscent of the Red Queen in Alice In Wonderland.

It was good to enjoy an opera that is seldom performed. Indeed on the night I came across only one other person who had experienced Orlando before, and that was over twenty years ago. Handel was not a success with his many operas and kept himself afloat only because King George had granted him an annuity. Eventually he discovered success with cantatas.

An exciting opportunity to sing operatic choruses and solos along with Aria Alba Opera for All company members!  Free workshop, all ages welcome; registration £2 per person; em

Aria Alba - a new Opera Company

celebrates the Spring with a Concert

of Operatic Choruses and Solos!

All welcome - tickets at door.

Following last year’s sell out success War and Peace, the annual collaboration between Scotland’s national conservatoire and Scotland’s national opera company is a revival of the

Watching Scottish Opera’s Marriage of Figaro was a lot of fun - just as it should be.

Seated in the usual critical position in front of the lighting box of Traverse One, this reviewer observed to his (considerably more) learned colleague from Opera Now that Phillip Glass’s music is something of a Marmite test – you either think it some of the most exciting music of our times, or you … well, don’t. That the auditorium was near capacity for this single performance of Glass’s opera ‘In The Penal Colony’ suggest a considerable following in this city at least.

Very different from Disney's film version, Opera North's Pinocchio is an extraordinarily elaborate and true production that is the result of 10 years work and research

The opera tells the story of a successful advertising executive, Harry Joy, who lived on the outskirts of a provincial town in Australia in the 1980s.

There are three full blown operas and four concert performances in the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival programme.

As the clock ticks down to the Edinburgh Fringe, EG asks Fringe director Jon Morgan what we can expect this year. Morgan says, in spite of the credit crunch, and fears over a "breakaway" Comedy Festival, the Fringe appears to be appear in good health with around 2,000 shows coming to the city in August.