Eden Court hosts Scottish Opera pop-up performances next month

SCOTTISH Opera will present two days of outdoor pop-up performances at Eden Court on September 19 and 20.

Following the Scottish Government’s update to the route map out of the Covid-19 crisis, Scottish Opera has announced it will bring it’s pop-up roadshow to Eden Court with special re-written 25-minute versions of the full operas, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers plus a new work, The Song of the Clyde, by Scottish composer Karen MacIver.

The Eden Court shows will be on Saturday, September 19 at noon, 2.30pm and 4.30pm and the next day, also at 12pm, 2.30pm and 4.30pm.

These performances, the first with live audiences in over six months, are in addition to a special production of Puccini’s La bohème in Glasgow and a live online stream on Friday, September, 18 of Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared, just announced as part of the Lammermuir Festival.

With these performances, the company brings live opera back to the stage with appropriate physical distancing observed at all times by performers, backstage staff and audiences.

Tickets will be available to reserve from Thursday 27 August.

The popular Pop-up Opera roadshow will also visit The Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, Platform Theatre in Easterhouse, The Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Heart of Hawick in the Borders, Edinburgh Zoo and the Museum of Flight in East Lothian. Tickets are free and will be available to reserve from Thursday 27 August.

Alex Reedijk, the opera company’s general director, said: “After over five months of lockdown, I am delighted that Scottish Opera can now begin to bring live singing and playing back to our audiences in Scotland.

“Many of them have shared with us what an exceptionally difficult time this has been, so we are delighted that we can begin to offer live performances again, even if only in reduced scale and appropriately socially distanced at present.

“As we know, the shared, live experience of entertainment brings so much pleasure to audience and performers, and, of course, it is great for everyone at Scottish Opera to be making work again.”

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

For booking details: www.eden-court.co.uk and www.scottishopera.org.uk