If Edinburgh Festival audiences are pining for the days of more than one staged opera on offer, then a trip across to Glasgow this August could be the answer. As part of its Live At No 40 outdoor festival, Scottish Opera presents six performances of its new promenade production of Candide, using the version of Bernstein’s score which was made definitive after the company put its stamp on it back in 1989. 

However, it’s not just audiences who’ll be crossing from one city to the other, but the opera’s director too. Still in his early 30s, Jack Furness is director of both Candide and Garsington Opera’s Rusalka which opened in Edinburgh just five days before curtain up in Glasgow. Except it might not be a curtain…. ‘The opera is in a lorry park site where we’ve put up a big tented structure, with a large performance area,’ Furness explains. ‘It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to do; a huge extravaganza and absolutely insane. We’ve broken our brains over it, but in a good way. The whole thing is bananas and joyful.’

^{Jack Furness, William Morgan, Lea Shaw and Dan Shelvey in rehearsals for Candide / Picture: Julie Howden}

The audience can be seated as well as promenade around the space as the scenes unfold, bringing what promises to be a fully immersive experience in which we follow chaotic round-the-world adventures of the satirical opera’s larger-than-life characters. There are lorries, shipping containers and a graffiti wall down one side. There’s an 80-strong community chorus in partnership with Maryhill Integration Network, ranging in age from teenagers to sixtysomethings and a ‘dream cast of soloists who bring character, life and intelligence’, says Furness. Scottish Opera’s orchestra is fixed in position while cast and audience rove around. ‘There’s the thrill of a live orchestra right up close and the audience will be within touching distance of the cast and singers. For me, it’s an example of what opera companies should be doing. There’s an electric energy and it’s exactly the work I want to be making. We want the audience to feel the effort of what goes into telling this story.’

Based on Voltaire’s novella of the same name, Candide is about taking a closer look at the optimistic philosophy that everything will work out for the best. ‘I don’t think people have that rosy view of the world,’ says Furness. ‘The point of Candide is the chaos of the world as it really is, and we haven’t tried to sanitise the messiness.’ 

New Rotterdam Wharf, Scottish Opera Production Studios, Glasgow, 11–20 August (not 12, 15, 17, 19 August), 6pm.