Scottish Opera’s 2013 production of Don Giovanni / Picture: James Glossop

While big-zero celebrations may have had focus elsewhere over recent weeks, HM The Queen is not the only one to be chalking up the decades in impressive achievement. Just one step behind her is Scottish Opera, which celebrates 60 years as Scotland’s national opera company. As with the monarch, it’s not always been an easy ride, with inevitable bumps along the way but as it enters its next phase, the company is in a good place, in good hands and looking forward to sharing its passion for opera with people up and down the country.

Started up by Motherwell-born conductor Sir Alexander Gibson, it was, says General Director Alex Reedijk, ‘a big vision, but with all the things required to get such a beastie up and running. Determination, musical skills, timing on the back of the Edinburgh Festival being founded and Sir Alex being an international artist at the height of his powers. The funding, governance and marketing were also all there. Scotland was ready for Scottish Opera.’

Early programming ambitions are still seen in how the company approaches its artistic plans today. In the first season, the popular Madama Butterfly sat alongside the much less familiar Pelléas Et Mélisande. In 2022, Don Giovanni is a time-honoured favourite while Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov’s extraordinary Ainadamar receives its UK staged premiere. There’s also a rare outing of Il Trittico, which Music Director Stuart Stratford describes as Puccini’s Ring Cycle. ‘It’s about balancing the well-known alongside the more unusual,’ says Reedijk, ‘and building trust with our audiences, saying here is work we’d love you to hear, even if you don’t know it.

Over the years, Scottish Opera has won the hearts and minds not only of its audiences and supporters, but a whole panoply of operatic stars. Perhaps none more so than national treasure Sir Thomas Allen, whose wisdom, knowledge and experience gained as singer and director, are now helping to steer Scottish Opera’s onward course. ‘I’m very happy to have this association,’ he says. ‘Although we maybe don’t shout it from the rooftops, Scottish Opera plays an enormously important part in the matrix of what goes on in opera in the UK and internationally. Standards are extremely high and what companies like Scottish Opera, WNO and Glyndebourne can do is find where the good international talent is and nurture it. What also really interests me is how the company represents itself in so many different ways, introducing so many people to this different medium.’

Whether it’s main-stage productions, concert performances, an outdoors under canvas Candide, opera highlights, pop-up opera, on-screen opera, education work or opera for babies, Scottish Opera is reaching at least 60 locations across Scotland in its 60^th anniversary season. It’s not only the music, of course, that makes opera, it’s the staging, the costumes, the technical wizardry and many other aspects that are not obviously seen. ‘What we’re doing is music-making and theatrical storytelling,’ says Reedijk. ‘When it all comes together, it’s magical and hugely powerful.’

Full details of Scottish Opera’s 60^th anniversary season can be found at scottishopera.org.uk.