Scottish Opera is Scotland’s national opera company and the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland. The 2023/24 Season marks its 61st Anniversary.

The Company’s performance repertoire ranges across five centuries, from the earliest operas to newly-commissioned world premieres. Scottish Opera collaborates with the world’s finest singers and creatives, together with The Orchestra of Scottish Opera and choruses for each opera. Recent accolades include a South Bank Sky Arts Award, a Scottish Award for New Music, Sunday Herald Culture Awards, a Herald Angel, and a 2020 RPS Award. In 2021 the Company returned to live audiences with Sir David McVicar’s new production of Verdi’s Falstaff performed in Glasgow and at the Edinburgh International Festival.

The Company tours extensively across Scotland to ensure performances are within reach of as many of the country’s very dispersed population as possible. Specially adapted 40-foot long trailers bring Pop-up Opera performances to thousands of people each year. In 2021 the Company performed nearly 200 performances of its Pop-up Opera Roadshow to socially distanced audiences of 11,014 people. This is one of the most extensive touring programmes of any European opera company and a much-valued contribution to Scotland’s cultural and artistic life, particularly in remote and island communities.

The Company’s Education & Outreach programme, which celebrated 50 years in 2021, includes an annual Primary Schools Tour, bringing children the opportunity to perform their own specially commissioned piece alongside professional singers. Around 120 schools and 9,000 pupils take part each year. Scottish Opera aims to be inclusive and affordable through availability of subsidised and free tickets, as well as performances offering audio description and specially devised shorter access performances.

The Company’s Opera On Screen productions are available to watch online. The collection includes Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Opera Highlights, Menotti’s The Telephone, and Samuel Bordoli and Jenni Fagan’s The Narcissistic Fish. The Company’s 2021 production of The Gondoliers, filmed live at Festival Theatre Edinburgh, is available on BBC iPlayer.

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