page_title: Opera in Scotland
section_title: Opera venues in Scotland
hierarchical_section_title: Opera in Scotland / Opera venues in Scotland
caption_attribution_description: Festival Theatre, Nicholson Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. Photographed by myself. 21st August 2006
context_page_description: Scottish opera is a subgenre of Scottish music. This article deals with three separate, but overlapping subjects:
  Opera on Scottish themes, subject matter, or inspired by Scottish writers
  Opera by Scottish composers
  Opera in Scotland, including performers, production personnel, and opera companies, etc.
  A number of operas have been set in Scotland, or based around Scottish themes, but the number of notable operas written by Scots is far lower. Their actual connection to Scotland varies greatly.
  Searching for its typical and characteristic features, Scottish opera, has often been under strong foreign influence. Italian, French, English and German operas have served as models, even when composers sought to introduce characteristically national elements into their work. This dualism, to a greater or lesser degree, has persisted throughout the whole history of Scottish opera.
  The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s, introducing the cello to the country and then developing settings for lowland Scots songs.
context_section_description: Scottish Opera in the context of the Performing Arts
  Scotland has only one dedicated opera house, namely the Theatre Royal, Glasgow which has been the home of Scottish Opera since 1975. Owned by Scottish Opera, the Theatre Royal has been managed since 2005 by the Ambassador Theatre Group.
  Scottish Opera is the national opera company, one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government. Founded in 1962 and based in Glasgow, it is the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland. The other four, with their years of foundation, are the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (1891), Scottish Ballet (1969), Scottish Chamber Orchestra (1974), and the National Theatre of Scotland (2006).
  Opera venues in Scotland
  Scottish Opera performs mostly in the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, and in both His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen and at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness.
  Since 1947 and the foundation of the Edinburgh International Festival, a strong standard of provision from visiting companies has normally formed a highlight of the Scottish operatic year. The lack of an Edinburgh venue suitable for international theatre companies was however a problem over much of this time. The obvious solution was to finance a purpose-built modern theatre of the sort found in many overseas capitals. After much criticism of the inadequacy of venues, a plan from 1960 to construct a long overdue opera house-concert hall complex developed into a long-running saga that became known as Edinburgh's "hole in the ground".  The project was eventually abandoned due to increasing cost projections and a lack of political will to start implementing it. The site in Castle Terrace was eventually leased for office development in 1988.
  Subsequently Festival opera has found its home in large traditional Edinburgh venues, renovated in turn to bring them up to modern standards. For some years in the 1980s it was the Playhouse with its impressive official capacity of 2900. Since 1994 the Festival Theatre (formerly The Empire) has been used both for the Festival and by Scottish Opera on their visits to Edinburgh.
  Elsewhere in Scotland, operas are also staged in a wide range of multipurpose theatres/performance spaces which regularly host performances of opera or opera excerpts, such as the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. There is also a certain amount of small scale touring opera at various community venues throughout the nation.
caption: The Festival Theatre building on Nicolson Street in Edinburgh
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