**** (4 stars)
“Enticingly Entertaining!”
A thoroughly enjoyable evening – for many of us a delightful trip down memory lane, and for the cast, a welcome roof over their heads! Scottish Opera’s Pop-ups travel the length and breadth of Scotland to perform potted versions of operas old and new using a specially adapted trailer which provides the artists with a little shelter from inclement weather, but provides none for the audience! I remember on one previous occasion sitting wrapped in my floor-length black ex-ecclesiastical cloak – and during Covid times sitting in the space encircled by my own personal hula-hoop…
Every single time, Scottish Opera’s pop-up performers deliver a potted version of an opera or operetta. Two singers, a narrator, a cellist and a guitarist, with the assistance of some brilliantly-drawn illustrations [this time the talented Otto von Beach], canter their way through the essentials of a piece, aiming both to entertain and to entice members of the audience who may be new to the art form to pluck up their courage and find a theatre in which to experience the ‘full-fat’ version.
Tonight’s shows were two Gilbert and Sullivan classics, the Pirates of Penzance and the Gondoliers. Storyteller Katie Barnett drew us in from the very start, encouraging a lusty aaaaaaaaaaaarh from us whenever we heard the word pirate as she told us about young Frederick, a slave to duty, who was mistakenly apprenticed by his nurse Ruth not to a ship’s pilot but to a pirate. Orphans, pirates, policemen, a Major-General [the very model of a modern one] and his charming daughters wove their way through the complicated plot to its blessedly happy ending. On the way, Jessica Leary and Paul Grant sang us bits of arias, duets and ensembles in which we joyfully joined the chorus on every possible occasion.
Lightbulb moment – given the audience’s joy in participating, and the accuracy of their memories, have Scottish Opera ever considered doing a ‘singalongaG&S’ evening? I’m sure it would be a sell-out!
Back to the shows… after a respectable interval the cast came back on stage, Jessica and Paul with their brilliant accompanists, Luke Anderson on guitar and Andrew Drummond Hagan on cello. The pirate costumes had been swapped for gondoliers’ outfits, and the setting shifted from salt-sprayed Cornwall to sunny Venice.
Gondoliers, their female admirers, a Duke, his family, and their servant became entangled with a Grand Inquisitor. Potential kings, potential bigamists, lost, swapped and found babies, and a hard-to-find foster-mother wove their way through this narrative, with Jess and Paul doing sterling duty as just about all of the above. Thankfully, everything was sorted out satisfactorily! And the music was joyfully glittering with sparkling, sun-kissed melodies…
It was a clever pairing of pieces [though I am sad not to have made the acquaintance of the third piece currently on offer – the specially-composed Puffy MacPuffer and the Crabbit Canals]. I had sat through Pirates feeling a little miffed that Jess had so much less to do than Paul – but the roles were reversed in Gondoliers and she sparkled and shone along with the music. There was less for us in the audience to do, but much to admire and enjoy. Glorious duets – one of us will be a queen and you won’t forget you’ve married me – and the fabulous solos when a merry maiden marries and take a pair of sparkling eyes. Narrator Katie got drawn into the etiquette lesson I am a courtier grave and serious and we would all have stood up and joined in the lively dance a cacucha, fandango, bolero had we not been trapped in the church’s pews.
All in all, it was a wonderful treat, especially since Scottish Opera so kindly came to my home town and afterwards all I had to do was walk home! I also had a chance to say hi to Jess, one of the tutors on Scottish Opera’s award-winning Breath Cycle singing workshops, which has helped me and many others find or regain our singing voices. The resources are now freely available on Scottish Opera’s website – don’t miss out, explore them today: who knows, you might end up on stage in a Pop-up Opera one day soon…
Music at the Brunton: Scottish Opera Pop-up Operas present A little bitof the Pirates of Penzance and the Gondoliers, Northesk Parish Church, Musselburgh, Tour Continues until 6th of July for more information go to: https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/shows/pop-up-opera-2025/
ScotsGay Arts 