Scottish Opera returns to live outdoor performance for the first time in nine months, with its popular Pop-up Opera Roadshow, starting Thursday 10 June 2021. Attracting expected socially-distanced audiences of over 12,000, two specially-adapted trailers will take to the road at the same time, condensing five fun-filled Gilbert & Sullivan classics and all their frivolity into 30 minute performances of A Little Bit of… The Gondoliers, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and Iolanthe.
Featuring some of Gilbert & Sullivan’s wittiest lyrics and best- known tunes, the shows are an ideal opportunity for anyone new to opera to try a taster. Cleverly re-scored by Scottish Opera’s Head of Music, Derek Clark, with story text by Allan Dunn, the shows will be popping up at a variety of iconic and surprising locations across Scotland starting in Inverness, before extending across Aberdeenshire, the Isle of Lewis and down to Dumfries and the Scottish Borders via Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. 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 household bubbles in line with the current Scottish Government guidelines.
The shows are brought to life by storyteller Allan Dunn, along with singers Stephanie Stanway, Charlotte Hoather, Andrew McTaggart, Mark Nathan, Jessica Leary, instrumentalists Andrew Drummond Huggan, Laura Sergeant, Sasha Savaloni and Ian Watt, with a series of colourful illustrations helping guide the audiences through the somewhat convoluted, but always comical, adventurous tales of Gilbert & Sullivan.
The final leg of the tour, running throughout September, will offer a double bill of shows including the Pirates of Penzance and a revival of A Little Bit of Bubble McBea. Aimed at children in Primary 1 to 3, Bubble McBea deals with environmental issues in the coasts around Scotland, raising awareness of sea pollution in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow.
Scottish Opera’s General Director, Alex Reedijk, said:
The return to live performance is something we have long awaited and after 9 months we are delighted to kick off what is sure to be a summer like no other, with Pop-up Opera. The roadshow is at the heart of what we do as a company, travelling the highways and byways of Scotland to local communities and making opera accessible to all. So, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to return to this in a safe manner at locations across Scotland. Using two trailers allows us to offer over 200 performances with double the fun for double the audiences. We look forward to seeing everyone at our outdoor performances very soon and hopefully inside theatres in the near future.