Lust & Laughter

In partnership with Scottish Opera

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A brand-new showcase performance of operatic scenes and extracts on the set of The Makropulos Affair, in partnership with Scottish Opera.

“This showcase performance is a rollercoaster ride through fairy tale romances, vengeful encounters, love triangles and mistaken identity, all taking place on one crazy night. We invite you to jump down the rabbit-hole of human emotion, and celebrate with us as conflict becomes harmony and love finally conquers all.” – Emma Jenkins

Conductor – Stuart Stratford

Stuart Stratford is Music Director at Scottish Opera. Praised for his “intense engagement and energy” (The Telegraph) and his “razor sharp” musical direction (Times Literary Supplement), conductor Stuart Stratford was appointed Music Director of Scottish Opera in 2015. In the 2023/24 season he conducts the orchestra of Scottish Opera in concert repertoire including The French Collection, works by Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod, and Jules Massenet and Daphne by Richard Strauss. His opera productions for this season include The Barber of Seville and La Traviata both for Scottish Opera.

Recent operatic highlights include Ainadamar and Il Trittico (both Scottish Opera), Peter Grimes (Royal Danish Opera), Aida (Opera Australia), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Don Giovanni, and a concert double bill of Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight, Stravinsky’s Mavra (all for Scottish Opera); Così fan tutte (Scottish Opera at Lammermuir Festival); the world premiere of Stuart MacRae’s Anthropocene, the European premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, and filmed productions of L’elisir d’amore and Hansel and Gretel (all for Scottish Opera); and Lucia di Lammermoor (English National Opera).

In the UK Stratford has conducted for English National Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Opera Holland Park, Birmingham Opera Company, Edinburgh International Festival and Buxton Festival, as well as Scottish Opera, with a wide breadth of repertoire including La bohème, Il trittico, La Fanciulla del West, Tosca, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Giovanni, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, L’amico Fritz, Iris, Silvano, Falstaff, Rigoletto, Giovanna d’Arco, Lucia di Lammermoor, Orfeo ed Euridice, Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, The Queen of Spades, La forza del Destino, Khovanshchina, Jenůfa, Katya Kabanova, Faust, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Turn of the Screw, Satyagraha, Candide, and Jonathan Dove’s Swanhunter, L’altra Euridice and Tobias and the Angel. Outside the UK, he has worked at Finnish National Opera (Doctor Atomic); Theater St. Gallen (Un ballo in Maschera); with Estonian National Opera at the Birgitta Festival (Faust), and in Hong Kong (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

Stratford has conducted orchestras and ensembles including the London Philharmonic Orchestra; BBC Philharmonic; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; City of London Sinfonia; Manchester Camerata; Porto Symphony Orchestra; Orchestra of the Algarve; Perm Opera and Ballet Theater; Viva Sinfonia; Remix Ensemble; and Ural Symphony Orchestra in Yekaterinburg where he gave the Russian premiere of Momentum (Turnage) and Airport Scenes (Dove).

Director – Emma Jenkins

Emma began her career working at ENO as a staff director after which she went on to direct the world premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s The Country of the Blind for ENO at the Aldeburgh Festival and the QEH.

Between 2017-2024 she directed National Opera Studio residencies at WNO and Scottish Opera. Other directing credits include Strauss’s Daphne in 2023 for Scottish Opera at Glasgow Theatre Royal, the Lammermuir Festival and the Usher Hall and also the 2022/23 Opera Highlights tour. Earlier this year she directed Massenet’s Cendrillon at RCS.

As librettist she has written In Parenthesis (composer Iain Bell –WNO 2016), Rhondda Rips it Up (composer: Elena Langer- WNO 2018), Jack the Ripper – The Women of Whitechapel (composer: Iain Bell – ENO 2019), Song of the Heartland (composer: Will Todd – Opera North 2020), she was co-translator for the UK premiere of Philip Glass’s Orphée (ENO 2019). Her most recent libretto commission Blaze of Glory (composer: David Hackbridge Johnson – WNO 2023) was nominated for both a UK Theatre Award and International Opera Award. In May 2023 she wrote and presented, a three part radio series about the history of the libretto called “The Little Book” which aired on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds. She has also written the libretti for two short operas Told by an Idiot and In Flagrante (composer Toby Hession) which were performed by Scottish Opera as part of the 2022 and 2023 Opera Highlights Tour. Future plans include a new opera A Matter of Misconduct for which she has written the libretto which will premiere at Scottish Opera in 2025.