Scottish Opera

About Us

About us

Scottish Opera is Scotland’s national opera company and the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland. The 2022/23 Season marks its 60th 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.

Emerging Artists

Our Emerging Artists programme gives young artists the opportunity of a lifetime – a period of full-time work with the Company to help them launch their careers. Initially set up to nurture outstanding young singers, the programme now includes positions for a repetiteur, a costume trainee and a composer-in-residence.

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera plays in the Company’s productions across Scotland, including performances at Glasgow Theatre Royal, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Eden Court in Inverness and Aberdeen’s His Majesty’s Theatre, and in touring performances in England, Northern Ireland, Europe and beyond.

The Orchestra also gives regular concert performances, including The Sunday Series at the Theatre Royal Glasgow for which it utilises a custom-built acoustic shell. The Series includes both operatic and non-operatic repertoire, ranging from Haydn and Beethoven symphonies to rarely performed operatic works, in which they are joined by world class singers.

The Orchestra works with the City of Glasgow Chorus, Celtic Connections and Dundee Choral Society, as well as with choral unions and societies around the country.

The Orchestra was formed in 1980 by Scottish Opera’s founder and first Music Director, Sir Alexander Gibson. The conductors John Mauceri, Sir Richard Armstrong, Francesco Corti and Stuart Stratford have since followed in Sir Alex’s footsteps.

Many of the more than 50 players in the Orchestra are Visiting Tutors to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow – ensuring that their skills and experience are passed on to the orchestral players of tomorrow. They also play in chamber ensembles or as soloists or section principals with orchestras throughout the UK.