Scottish Opera show to pop up in Oban

SCOTTISH Opera’s second tour of the Pop-up Opera Roadshow visits Oban and Rothesay in early June.

With three fun-filled 25-minute shows – A Little Bit of Figaro, A Little Bit of Mikado and A Little Bit of Northern Light – there’s something for everyone.

The specially-adapted trailer – designed to look like a miniature Theatre Royal in Glasgow inside – parks up at the Corran Halls in Oban on Wednesday, June 1, and the Mount Stuart Visitor Centre in Rothesay the following day with one storyteller, two singers, three instrumentalists and a series of colourful illustrations on board.

A Little Bit of Figaro – a bite-sized version of Mozart’s irresistible opera The Marriage of Figaro – tells the tale of serving girl Susanna, her cheeky fiance, Figaro, and their employer, Count Almaviva, who will stop at nothing to make Figaro and Susanna’s big day end in disaster.

One of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular comic operas, The Mikado, has been chopped down to create A Little Bit of Mikado. The Mikado of Japan has decreed that flirting should be punishable by death. But when his son Nanki-Poo falls for the beautiful YumYum, it looks like someone might be heading for the executioner’s block.

A Little Bit of Northern Light is a story for children and families of one lonely little lighthouse standing firm against the storms of the North Atlantic tide. Set in the not too distant future, it is an atmospheric tale of Scotland’s past, present and future, told from the perspective of the surrounding seas and the ships that sail in them.

Scottish Opera’s director of outreach and education Jane Davidson said: ‘ The Pop-up Opera Roadshow offers audiences across Scotland a truly unique and intimate experience. With the trailer covering 1,400 miles, and parking up in unexpected locations from festivals to car parks along the way, we hope to surprise both opera fans and those new to opera.’