Scottish Opera reveals Elephant man as new composer in residence

A MUSICIAN who is bringing the story of a loyal zoo keeper and the baby elephant she saved from the Blitz to the stage has been named as Scottish Opera’s first composer in residence.

Irish-born Gareth Williams will spend two years working alongside the company’s directors, musicians and designers in the new post. His hour-long “community opera”, The Elephant Angel, with professional performers working alongside teenagers and children, will tour next year.

But Mr Williams, who has worked on several short operas, said he also hoped to turn The Cone-Gatherers, a powerful and tragic 1955 Scottish novel about two brothers working as foresters during the Second World War, into an epic opera.

Scottish Opera and its Scottish Government funders have faced renewed questions recently as to whether the company, which recently shed its full-time orchestra, is delivering enough full-scale productions, with just one major opera this autumn.

But the company’s director Alex Reedijk said offering emerging artists, from singers to composers such as Mr Williams, the chance to “grow and flourish” was “an integral part of our responsibility as a national opera company”.

Mr Reedijk said: “I wanted him to have time to quietly work very closely with an opera company to help fulfil his potential destiny as a really important opera composer.”

Mr Williams wrote two pieces for Scottish Opera in its Five:15 showcases of 15-minute operas, both with the writer Bernard MacLaverty, his collaborator on The Elephant Angel project.

The opera is based on newspaper reports of Sheila, a baby elephant at Belfast Zoo, who was sheltered from German bombers by a keeper, Denise Austin, who walked her through the streets around her home.

Mr MacLaverty has just delivered a final libretto for the opera, which is set to tour Scotland with two professional singers, half a dozen teenage singers and up to 30 schoolchildren.

“It’s stories and it’s people that inspire me to write opera,” Mr Williams said. “The very first opera I saw was Don Giovanni when I was 17. I remember thinking it was captivating but very difficult as well – very long – and I struggled with the language barrier. I do bear that in mind, for people seeing opera for the first time.”

The new post, working two days a week, will allow him to talk to designers, directors, orchestra leaders, singers and young artists, he said. “I am hoping what it gives me is a learning curve. I want to get better at writing operas over the next two years.”

He may also look at work on a full-scale, two-act opera, he said. One possibility is The Cone-Gatherers, by Robin Jenkins.

“I think it’s just an epic Scottish novel, with an incredible amount of room for tragedy,” said Mr Williams.