When Alex Reedijk, General Director of Scottish Opera, announced the company's plans for the 2007-08 season, the big news was the commissioning of Five:15, five new fifteen-minute operas by leading Scottish composers and writers who are new to the art form.
In a year where several of the UK's opera companies are investing in new work - WNO has just presented James Macmillan's The Sacrifice; Opera North is about to unveil Jonathan Dove's Pinocchio; and The Royal Opera has Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur next April - Scottish Opera's initiative stands out for its unusual creative teams. For instance, leading crime novelist Ian Rankin will team up with Craig Armstong, composer of the score for the film Love Actually, for one of the fifteen minute pieces.
In anticipation of public booking opening next Tuesday for the performances of Five:15, I chatted briefly to Reedijk about the project and asked him about his inspiration for it, as well as his plans for including new commissions in Scottish Opera's future seasons.
'I've always been interested in new work', he explains, when I ask him why he commissioned the pieces. 'We have a strong education department; our main stage and touring activity is excellent. But I wanted Scottish Opera to have a twenty-first century attitude, and that means new work.'
Yet Reedijk was aware of the pitfalls of commissioning a new opera, which is how he came upon the idea for Five:15. 'It can take three, five or even ten years to commission and create a full-length work, and you're entrusting the family firm to one writing team. How do you pick the team? I started talking to various Scottish composers and discovered that there is a surge of activity; lots of people have aspirations to write operas but either feel intimidated by the prospect of a massive commission or don't have the opportunity to try things out. So the question was, how could we glue all of this together?
'I thought that if I could encourage them not to do too much too soon, the process might be more feasible. Initially I asked them to write twenty-minute operas, then reduced it to fifteen minutes. They're given a chamber orchestra and eight singers in total for the five pieces. That means I could keep an eye on the cost, but at the same time all the teams feel safe because they know the artistic boundaries. It's a manageable chamber context, not an epic journey that Scottish Opera can't manage.'
Then came the job for Reedijk to distil the initial fifteen projects down to five. 'I was anxious that each piece be an appropriate blend of music and theatre. A lot of new work sorts out the music part reasonably well but misses out the theatre. So I was specifically looking for strong collaborations.'
So how did these collaborations come about? 'I fell into conversation with Craig Armstrong one day. He's Glasgow-born and -bred and he told me that he'd had an urge to write a piece of opera. So I simply asked him, "Who do you want to write it with?" He immediately mentioned Ian Rankin, so I wrote to Ian, a fellow Scot, and he told me that, funnily enough, he'd just had a dream about writing an opera. It's important to note that Ian's a regular opera attendee, so although he's never written one before, he knows the genre well. Not all of the composers and writers have experience of writing opera, but they all care about it. It was important to me that they could spell "opera" already.'
Although there are a mere five performances of Five:15 in Edinburgh and Glasgow next February and March, it is only Year 1 of a four-year strategy. Reedijk clarifies: 'It's part of our Research and Development over four years. We have to find out who the creative teams for the twenty-first century are. I'm looking for potential and capacity. Even if the initial ideas run out in the first year, teams can go forward with new projects; on the other hand, some ideas might also develop further. We're doing it all again in 2009. Then in 2010 and 2011, one or two ideas might become intermediate-length pieces or full length works. It's very exciting and it's part of our integral plan for the future. We're an outward-looking, energetic modern opera company. What we do best is sing; we want to continue to get out there and do it.'
Reedijk is hugely optimistic for the future of the company. 'We're stable and solvent. In the next season we'll be announcing an increase in activity. It's all good news.' He points out that the Five:15 commission is 'one of the easiest projects we've had to raise money for. It's all come from the private sector and trust support; there's no company money in it. Scotland has always been strong in terms of the Arts. Writing, poetry and dancing have long been integral to the country. What's been missing is a positive attitude towards opera - a feeling that it matters. People were quick to come forward to help fund Five:15 because they genuinely feel that it matters. They think it's a fantastic idea and I hope it will help to make opera an important energy in Scotland.'
Public booking opens next Tuesday, 30 October 2007, for Five:15. Performances take place at ÒranMòr, Glasgow, on 29 February and 1 and 2 March 2008, and at The Hub, Edinburgh on 8 and 9 March. There will be two performances on 8 March. For more information, visit www.scottishopera.org.uk.