You shall go to the Fringe, Cinderella

SCOTTISH Opera is to perform at the Fringe for the first time in its 46-year history, The Scotsman has learned.

The company's production of Rossini's Cinderella, with a cast of seven accompanied by a piano, is playing the prime venue of the Assembly Rooms on the Fringe's first weekend.

Alex Reedijk, Scottish Opera's general director, called it an "experiment, just to see if there's an appetite" in a festival better known for theatrical high-jinks and no-holds-barred comedy.

The 2008 Fringe unveils its full programme next week, as Edinburgh's festival season begins gearing up in earnest.

Other major shows include On the Waterfront, directed by the actor and writer Steven Berkoff, at the Pleasance Grand venue. The story of the street-fighter who takes on the mob in the dockyards is the stage version of the classic film starring Marlon Brando in 1954. The production opened at the Nottingham Playhouse this spring with reviewers singing its praises.

The newly formed Edinburgh Comedy Festival will unveil a programme next week including Richard Herring, Ruby Wax, the legendary American comic Joan Rivers, raconteur Clive James and Irish comedy giants Jason Byrne and Ed Byrne.

The Assembly line-up also includes the acclaimed actor and author Simon Callow, performing two readings of Charles Dickens in the Assembly Rooms. Other major shows at the Pleasance venue include Aluminium, devised by the Tel Aviv-based dancer Ilan Azriel, which is making its UK debut.

Scottish Opera is already appearing this August on a far loftier scale in the Edinburgh International Festival, with The Two Widows, by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.

Backed by the Scottish Government's new fund to present more Scottish work at the festivals, it is a major production with five Scottish and international principal singers, a chorus of 46 and a full orchestra.

It also marks the first outing of the company's new director of music, Italian Francesco Corti.

By contrast Cinderella is one of the company's small-scale touring productions, and has been to 25 Scottish venues outside the major cities on two sell-out tours. "They are completely different beasties," said Mr Reedijk, of the two shows.

"We've had great success around Scotland with it. This is an appropriate and interesting opportunity to showcase our touring work in the world's biggest festival."

Sung in English, it is hoped that the operetta will reach outside the usual opera audience. "It's a great young cast, it seemed the right thing to have in the festival," he said.

Opera productions have appeared at the Fringe previously, but they have been typically low-budget or comical affairs. Cinderella will play for three lunch-time performances, running two and a half hours with interval in the 650-seat Music Hall.

"I don't think we've done any opera like this before," said the Assembly director, William Burdett-Coutts.

"We would like to do more work with Scottish Opera in future. They are trying to broaden their audience and get a young audience, so it's a good thing. I think it should sell well, it's an opening star show."

Star to follow in footsteps of Dickens

ON 26 MARCH 1858, a crowd of more than 2,000 people packed into Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms to hear Charles Dickens give a reading of his classic tale, A Christmas Carol.

"Mr Charles Dickens read the Christmas Carol to the members of the Philosophical Institution, who filled the Music Hall to overflowing," the Daily Scotsman reported the following day. "Mr Dickens was received with warm and prolonged applause."

This August, actor and writer Simon Callow, who has toured the world with his one-man show, The Mystery of Charles Dickens, will follow in the master's footsteps.

He will read two of Dickens' stories, Doctor Marigold, and Mr Chops the Dwarf.

"Callow came up with this idea, which is terrific," said the Assembly director, William Burdett-Coutts. "Dickens read in the Music Hall, so it's quite apt."