A LESS traditional, more collaborative Scottish Opera is getting its affairs in order, and gearing up to make the most of the Fringe
SCOTTISH Opera is not the galumphing beast it was several years ago. There will be those who still mourn the days of wall-to-wall grand productions, or mega-hits such as 2003's gloriously opulent Ring cycle. But increasingly we are getting used to a slimline company that washes its face financially; even if that means the big operas have to be rationed out in smaller helpings.
That's the now familiar pattern shaping today's announcement of the new 2009-10 season, which coincides with tonight's Glasgow opening of David McVicar's new production of Mozart's Cosí fan tutte: less of the big and traditional; more of the small and innovative; and, in order to bring as much of that together as possible, a policy of collaboration with a growing number of like-minded partners.
So, in addition to revivals of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love (Giles Havergal's quirky 1994 production) and Stewart Laing's 1999 update of Puccini's La bohème, next season's two new mainstream offerings are a co-production with NBR New Zealand Opera of Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers, and a collaboration with Opera North that brings Janácek's The Adventures of Mr Broucek (an opera using bagpipes) to Scotland for the first time.
There's even a partnership with Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre to mount a November performance by Music Theatre Wales of Eleanor Alberga's Letters of a Love Betrayed, conceived originally under the Royal Opera House's Opera Genesis programme.
It's all part of managing director Alex Reedijk's open-minded quest to make Scottish Opera "a 21st-century opera company". If that means working to credit crunch economies, it has also helped focus minds on reassessing what opera means to the widest possible audience. Reedijk sees this third season of his troubleshooting reign as part of a continuum to reposition the company, its function and its reputation.
"After three-and-a-half years, I feel now that we are up and running," is his confident assessment.
Indeed, there is a strategic logic to the content of the new season, which parcels the main operas (except the Janácek, of course) as "an Italian Season"; which builds on small-scale touring (and the Janácek theme) with a new piano-accompanied production of the Czech composer's Kátya Kabanová; which extends the annual link with the RSAMD Opera School to a joint production of Prokofiev's epic War and Peace; and which presents the third instalment of short new operas under the Five:15 banner, this time extended beyond Edinburgh and Glasgow to a collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and the city's Word Festival.
Most importantly, this is the first opportunity for newly-appointed musical director Francesco Corti to exert a direct influence on the programming, which has its most obvious bearing on the strong Italian theme. He brings his native expertise in this field – and a reputation that stretches to notable appearances at La Scala Milan – to Rossini's Italian Girl in Algiers and the La bohème revival, while handing the Donizetti over to fellow Italian conductor Maurizio Barbacini.
Those who enjoyed Corti's one-off concert performance with Scottish Opera of Bellini's I puritani last month at Glasgow's City Halls may be wondering why no such project has materialised in the new season brochure.
"That's just a matter of financial management," Reedijk explains. "We are in the process of planning another full-length concert performance for the summer of 2010, but that would officially fall into the next season."
Yet there are consequences resulting from such compartmentalised planning, where important areas of operatic repertoire appear to absent themselves for long periods. When did we last hear one of the big Romantic German operas, or an opera by Britten, for that matter? Reedijk's answer is to suggest that we view the company's repertory over a longer timescale. What you don't get one season, may come along the next. Fair enough.
Nonetheless, for lovers of opera at its grandest scale, there's always The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama's War and Peace next January, part of a long term collaborative celebration of Prokofiev's rarities that began last year with Love of Three Oranges. With 64 named roles, War and Peace is hardly a work that Scottish Opera or the Academy could ever independently consider these days. But together – through a scheme that sees Academy instrumentalists apprenticed within the Scottish Opera Orchestra and student stage technicians tutored by experienced professionals – the whole thing is possible, enhanced by the RSAMD's collaboration with singers from its partner conservatoire in Rostov-on-Don. This production, slated to visit both Glasgow and Edinburgh, uses a brand-new performing version that cuts Prokofiev's immense opera down to three hours.
If there's one area that has Reedijk stumped, it's the puzzle over Scottish Opera's absence from this year's Edinburgh Festival. It's an appalling state of affairs, given that Jonathan Mills, the Festival director, seems to have no problem providing the national orchestras and Scottish Ballet with an annual Festival platform.
"We simply weren't made part of the discussions this year," says Reedijk.
What on earth must the Scottish Government, which directly funds the national companies, make of an omission that sends such a poor message to the international arts community about Scotland's artistic self-confidence?
And this in a year that saw Scottish Opera's brilliant 2007 production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor snapped up by Valery Gergiev for the Mariinsky Opera, netting invaluable plaudits for Scottish Opera's artistic resurgence, and cash for its bank account? That point is even more astonishing when you consider the limited fascination of this year's Festival opera programme.
"Surely it is part of the duty of the Edinburgh International Festival to celebrate the culture of its own country," says a disgruntled Reedijk. It's something he says he'll "need to work on".
Keep an eye on the Fringe programme, though. He may not have secured a place at the main table, but Reedijk hints he will march some of his company east this summer and enter by the side door. That's the spirit!
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