Now you can enjoy opera ... just a little bit

The Scottish Opera is taking its Pop-up Opera Roadshow to the Heart of Hawick on Thursday, September 24, as part of a tour around the country.

The shows are performed in a specially adapted trailer to create a portable stage to adhere with social distancing guidelines.

While past productions of Pop-up Operas have accommodated both the audience and performers inside the mobile Theatre Royal trailer, this year performances are al fresco with a covered stage and audiences out front in the open air, seated in social/household bubbles.

There’s two brilliant free shows on offer, although tickets do have to be pre-booked.

First up, at noon, is A Little Bit of Don Giovanni, followed by A Little Bit of the Gondoliers at 2.30pm.

Arranged by Derek Clark, Scottish Opera’s head of music, A Little Bit of Don Giovanni offers highlights from Mozart’s classic dark tale of seduction.

The Don sets his sights on Donna Anna, and when her father intervenes, it costs him his life and Don Giovanni must flee.

But as the shadows close in and the mistakes of his past begin to catch up with him, the Don’s tangled web of lies and betrayal begins to unravel.

One of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular comic operas has been whittled down by Derek Clark to create A Little Bit of The Gondoliers.

Originally planned to complement Scottish Opera’s mainstage production of The Gondoliers which was due to tour Scotland and London earlier this year, the whimsical opera tells the story of two happy-go-lucky gondoliers in Venice who discover that one of them is, in fact, heir to the throne of a distant kingdom.

The shows are brought to life by storyteller Allan Dunn, singers Sarah Power, Stephanie Stanway, Aidan Edwards and Andrew McTaggart, instrumentalists Andrew Drummond Huggan, Sasha Savaloni and Ian Watt, and a series of colourful illustrations by Tim Gravestock, Otto Von Beech and Iain Piercy.

Scottish Opera’s director of outreach and education, Jane Davidson, said: “Scottish Opera’s Pop-up tour is even more delighted than ever to be out and about across the country, performing a selection of miniature gems from the opera repertoire.

“Alongside the dark and powerful tale of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, you will be transported to Venice to observe the complicated love lives of two lads who make their living on the waterways of that most romantic of cities in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers.

Pop-up Opera is sponsored by Baillie Gifford and supported by Scottish Opera’s Education Angels.

To book a pod of two or four seats, visit https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/shows/pop-up-opera-2020/