What impressed as much if not more than the quality of singing and performance in Scottish Opera’s attempt to bring opera to the masses was their selection of music. It would have been easy for the company to go down the greatest hits route and have picked pieces familiar from TV adverts and film soundtracks, but instead they took the road less travelled with music from more obscure composers such as Zeller and Gluck as well as eschewing the more obvious and overplayed pieces from works by Mozart, Rossini Puccini and co.

If Scottish Opera continue to push the boundaries and open the audience’s ears to unknown pleasures then long may it flourish.

The performers – Louise Collett (Mezzo), Miranda Sinani (Soprano), Robert Tucker (Baritone) and Adrian Ward (Tenor) were all excellent and as the music leaned heavily on the opera buffo it was fortunate that they possessed such fine comic timing. Collett and Sinani in particular had a deftness of touch that most non-singing actors would relish. That’s not to say that when called upon for drama they were not up to the task and Robert Tucker’s bold performance of No rest no peace from Borodin’s Prince Igor held in it all the emotive power it would have had in front of a thousand people.

Boldness has its pitfalls and the choice to include the quartet from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, an opera more admired than loved, was probably the shows only obvious mistake. However in a performance that introduced the audience to the almost Marxist (that’s Groucho not Karl) pleasures of Carl Zeller’s “I am a Rector and Director” and William Walton’s “I was a constant, faithful wife” one misstep was probably forgivable.

This show is a yearly treat for those who can’t get to the SO’s big productions in Edinburgh and Glasgow and if they continue to push the boundaries and open the audience’s ears to unknown pleasures then long may it flourish.