Opera Scotland

Eugene Onegin 2004Scottish Opera-Go-Round

Read more about the opera Eugene Onegin

The 2003-04 season of Scottish Opera was dominated by its opening event. Tim Albery's production of Der Ring des Nibelungen had been assembled during the three previous Edinburgh Festivals. The 2003 Festival was the culmination of this process, with complete cycles performed. After this intensive sequence of two Edinburgh cycles, the company moved on to give two in Glasgow and a final one at the recently opened Lowry at Salford Quays.

For non-Wagnerites, the rest of the season consisted of new productions of The Magic Flute and La bohème with a revival of Aïda. There was also n intimate staging of Eugene Onegin - with piano in the autumn and a small band in the spring. There was also the annual Essential Scottish Opera tour of the Highlands and Islands. A distinct novelty was a new piece composed specifically for children - on a larger scale than the company's previous works of this kind, The Minotaur by Julian Evans toured with a small orchestra.

Scottish Opera on Tour - a group formed to succeed Scottish Opera Go Round in providing a service outside the main touring theatres - took over this staging of Eugene Onegin which Opera Go Round had opened with a piano-accompanied eleven venue tour in the spring of 2003. A year later it was revived with broadly the same singers and a cleverly reduced orchestration (by Julian Grant), stylishly played by principals of the Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

The production was fine in the intimate scenes, and, with clever use of mirrors, made a surprising success of the grander elements, even the last act ball scene.