Let me set the scene. You’re riding in a Scottish Opera minibus with the words ‘Bringing Opera To You’ written in a large bold font on the sliding door. You’ve been travelling on B-roads in north-west Scotland heading towards the Isle of Seil, which has a population of just over 500 people. Over the past two days, you’ve joined the Scottish Opera Highlights tour and are conversing with the company about their time on the road. The backdrop to those conversations have been mountains, fjords, lochs, and rainbows so vivid you’re sure they have somehow been spray painted in the sky.

When you arrive at the Seil Island Community Centre, you walk 10 minutes to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, where a spectacular sunset has painted the crashing waves a striking pink and gold. When you walk back to the venue, you chat with the community members who have started arriving at the hall. Some are excited to watch their very first opera performance, and others still cannot believe Scottish Opera has brought such a spectacular showcase all the way from Glasgow to their small seaside town. You watch the audience beam at the performance in front of them, completely engaged and clearly grateful. You hear their impressions in the foyer during the interval, where the Scottish Opera team is serving tea and coffee.

Soprano Katy Thomson (far right) says community music making is ‘the kind of raw, person-to-person connection that I love’ [Sally Jubb]

The moment the performance ends, every audience member stands up and begins stacking chairs and restoring their community hall to its usual state, even though the production team was prepared to do this job themselves. The singers emerge from backstage and chat with audience members over the next hour, listening to their impressions and their favourite scenes. You help pack the minibus with costumes and set pieces, and you drive back to where you’ve been staying in Oban against a backdrop of stars so plentiful and bright that the sky looks like glitter.

When you arrive and exit the vehicle, you hear music from a neighbouring pub. As you and some of the company walk towards the sound, you see that you have happened upon karaoke night, so you drink Scotch neat and sign up to sing Amy Winehouse with the locals. As you’re falling asleep later that night, you think about opera and the power it holds to bring communities together. You think about joy and beauty and how much of it you have seen and felt during these two days. Scottish Opera has done something remarkable here, you think. And you haven’t stopped thinking about it since you left.

The Scottish Opera Highlights tour has been a staple of the company’s season for over 25 years. The tour now runs twice per year and travels to more than 30 venues across Scotland, including to remote communities where opera might not be accessible otherwise. The production for this year’s autumn tour and next year’s spring tour was directed by Laura Attridge and designed by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, with music selected by Derek Clark. The singers for the autumn tour were Katy Thomson, Katherine Aitken, Innocent Masuku, and Jerome Knox, with musical direction by Toby Hession. Dawn Rawcliffe is the touring manager.

Each year, Scottish Opera creates an entirely new production for its Opera Highlights tour, and this process has always started with Derek Clark, who recently retired after 25 years as the head of music at Scottish Opera. The choice of music is entirely dependent on the four singers selected to go on tour. These singers are typically at the beginning of their professional career, so Opera Highlights is an opportunity for them to perform in varied venues and build their stamina. ‘We’re challenging the performers, but we’re not taking them out of their comfort zone,’ says Clark. He wants to ensure the performers are happy and comfortable with the repertoire they will be singing for so many weeks on the road. Clark is also concerned with programming a diverse and varied repertoire. ‘One of the challenges in an opera highlights programme is that the bulk of the stuff is going to be from the 19th century, because that’s when opera was at its peak. I try hard to make sure that we go forwards as well as backwards, and for the last decade or so we’ve premiered a brand-new piece as part of the programme.’

For the past two years, this new piece has been commissioned by musical director and composer Toby Hession and librettist Emma Jenkins. ‘It’s a real honour to have been asked back to write a piece for the highlights tour,’ says Hession. ‘I’m a contemporary composer, so I’m very interested in finding new languages and new sounds and new ways of doing things. My priority, though, is to take a story and libretto and to set things up as naturally as I can. This is not very difficult if you’ve got a good librettist, and working with Emma Jenkins has been amazing.’

Once the music was programmed by Clark, the task of director Laura Attridge was to fashion a story out of it. ‘What I have attempted to do,’ says Attridge, ‘is to frame each scene within an overarching narrative that gives clarity to the action without needing to understand the text word for word (if at all!) while simultaneously honouring each scene individually as its own mini-opera so that anyone familiar with it can enjoy a different interpretation.’

When the production hits the road, the performers and production team are fully committed to offering an excellent performance to brand-new audiences in brand-new cities. For Katy Thomson, a Scottish soprano who has dreamed of working with Scottish Opera since childhood, the chance to travel her country and perform with the Opera Highlights tour has been a dream come true.

‘I grew up with a lot of community music making, and it’s that type of raw, person-to-person connection that I love. This tour has felt like a homecoming in so many different ways. I suspect it’ll take a while for it all to sink in, actually.’

By bringing opera to these communities, Scottish Opera is combating the long-held assumption of opera’s elitism with a fashioning of an intimate and comfortable production which is still musically and dramatically excellent. ‘Even if someone could travel the distance to a larger opera house, concert hall or theatre, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they feel comfortable stepping inside,’ says Laura Attridge.

‘By touring around venues that are embedded in communities, Highlights allows both for those local audiences to get opera on their doorsteps, and for them to feel a sense of connection and welcome – even a sense of ownership – in the buildings to which the show is travelling.’

Every member of the production is hyper-aware that for many cities on the tour, Opera Highlights is their only access to the art form. ‘Live opera is definitely not accessible in the most remote parts of Scotland and the Islands,’ says tour manager Dawn Rawcliffe.

‘For many, Opera Highlights will be their only opportunity to listen to live professional opera, some maybe for the first time. This hopefully builds an audience who might then make the journey to see a large-scale production.

‘In more remote parts of Scotland the venues are largely run by volunteers, without whom the village halls and community centres would not be available for us to book. We are extremely grateful to all staff, volunteers and community groups who support us.’ 

Scottish Opera’s spring 2024 Opera Highlights tour begins in February. The singers for the spring tour are Inna Husieva, Lea Shaw, Monwabisi Lindi, and Ross Cumming, with musical direction by James Longford

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Opera Now. Join our community of opera lovers – subscribe to Opera Now today