Scottish Opera show heading to East Kilbride later this year
Tickets are now on sale for the new production of Scottish Opera's Opera Highlights, which hits East Kilbride Village Theatre on October 2.
The audience will follow the story of four very different characters, watching how their personal relationships intertwine at the office party. With no shortage of messy romance and an unforgettable work soiree, this will be a night of opera to remember!
Performing in this one-of-a-kind show, created specifically for Scottish Opera each season, are 2025/26 Emerging Artists mezzo-soprano Chloe Harris and tenor Luvo Maranti, along with soprano Ceferina Penny and baritone James Geidt, both making their Company debuts. Accompanying the singers on piano is Music Director Meghan Rhoades, Emerging Artist Repetiteur.
Transforming smaller venues into a local opera house, the show starts in East Kilbride and travels to Ayr, Gartmore, Brechin, Ellon, Crail, Castle Douglas, Melrose, Crawfordjohn, Birnam, Nairn, Lochinver, Glenuig, Castlebay (a return visit following the Company's Opera Highlights performance in February being cancelled due to bad weather), Lochranza, Johnstone, and Edinburgh.
Scottish Opera's extensive touring programme is one of the largest of any European opera company, ensuring performances are within reach of as many of Scotland's dispersed population as possible.
Over 4000 people of all ages attended the Spring Opera Highlights tour this year, with audience members commenting how it was 'wonderful that Scottish Opera comes to some of the more remote and rural areas', bringing the show 'to our doorstep'.
The show's Director is Emma Doherty who last worked with Scottish Opera on the Outreach & Education show, The Giant's Harp, and was Assistant Director in 2024 on Oedipus Rex and Marx in London! Designs are by the award-winning Kenneth MacLeod, who worked on last Season's Opera Highlights.
The playlist cleverly combines a fabulous collection of much-loved classics with a treasure trove of lesser-known pieces. These include music from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Gounod's Romeo and Juliette, Massenet's Werther, Handel's Alcina, Strauss II's Die Fledermaus and Samuel Barber's one-act opera, A Hand of Bridge.
These operatic snapshots are curated by Fiona MacSherry, Scottish Opera's Head of Music. All are sung in English or an English translation, making the story immediate and accessible for the audience.
Director Emma Doherty said: 'I am delighted to be directing the next Opera Highlights tour, which showcases some beautiful music and deals with the themes of forbidden love and deception. In the show, designed by the brilliant Kenneth MacLeod, audiences can expect to see four colleagues with complicated love triangles who are gearing up for their office party!'
While on tour with Opera Highlights, Scottish Opera is running school and community workshops, with more details to be announced soon.
At these free 'How to stage an opera' interactive sessions, those attending will learn about the process of powerful storytelling through opera, using scenes from the tour as inspiration.
The creative team will explore how music can illustrate dramatic context on stage, and the mechanics of staging and directing scenes from an opera.
Participants learn how singers use their voices and stage techniques to generate atmosphere and create mood to develop character, and how basic props can support the time, location and even the weather in which the story is unfolding.
These sessions, lasting approximately one hour, are open to all ages, and no previous experience is required.
Opera Highlights goes on the road again in Spring 2026, when Emerging Artist Repetiteur Toby Stanford accompanies singers including Emerging Artists Daniel Barrett and Kira Kaplan along with Alexandria Moon and Connor James Smith.
Opera Highlights is supported by Friends of Scottish Opera and JTH Charitable Trust.
Tickets are on sale now at the Scottish Opera website.
And did you know Lanarkshire Live had its own app? Download yours for free here.
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