Heritage Resources

12 poets for 12 months

In celebration of the new foyers at the Theatre Royal, Scottish Opera commissioned 12 writers to each create a poem. We received 12 wonderful pieces that capture the writer’s memories of being at the theatre.

We will release a different poem here each month. You can also pick up postcards at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow and the Scottish Poetry library in Edinburgh.

The poetry project was kindly supported by the Edwin Morgan Trust and Dr David Summers Charitable Trust.

• 

• Final Curtains

  In that moment when the operas you’ve been to
  flash before your eyes: a maelstrom of maestros,
  a diversity of divas, a concurrence of high Cs.
  From the first one I saw, the shock of a dead girl
  emerging from a sack, to sing like an angel;
  decades later, after the thrill of the brass, Don
  Carlos cloistered from the flesh-creeping Grand
  Inquisitor; a profusion of Figaros and Giovannis
  in their progress to marriage-bed or furnace roar;
  a tender duet, then a little page twinkling back
  for his new mistress’s handkerchief; the thunderous
  downfall of the Gods and Valhalla in flames
  a prelude to consoling wings and redemption;
  or with Butterfly lying, transfixed, before us,
  the release of heart-break, in a torrent of applause.

  Stewart Conn

• 

• In Number One Dressing Room

  on this, the last night of the run
  before beginners and after her five-minute call
  just time for one last time
  to centre herself, apply one last scoosh
  of that antique cologne she wears to
  get in character with just this character,
  bin the dregs of it, kiss
  her lucky rabbit’s-foot mascot that
  got her grandad through the war, drop it
  in the maw of her packed carpetbag.
  She’s counted the champagne corks,
  chucked them, unpeeled from their blu-tack
  the goodluck cards from friends,
  stacked them on top of the drawings
  from her children that sent their
  lots and lots of love but gave her guilt.
  The over-the-top flamboyant flowers
  her agent sent are drooped and dying,
  ditto the bonny bouquets from friends,
  even the single rose from her secret lover.
  She smears the lipsticked messages and kisses
  on the merciless mirror, risks
  a final check in it, bares her teeth.
  God, but she’s glad of that nap under her wrap
  before the half – one last night to get every last thing right!
  There’s a plane ticket in her handbag.
  Beginners, and out she goes along breezeblock corridors
  to the wings, the wings
  which give her flight.

  Liz Lochhead

• 

• On gratitude for Opera

  Most operas are considerably less than possible:
  All art is unrealistic, or parts of it are;
  No real children would stray into an enchanted wood
  To be seized by a witch; no ring nor real gold
  Would confer such powers as opera allows;
  But the gratitude we feel is real enough,
  The tears we shed for Mimi or for Butterfly
  Are not contrived; we cry buckets
  At those endings where our hero or heroine
  Falls to the floor in the dying moments
  Before the curtain falls, just as our smiles
  Are genuine enough on a less harrowing ending;
  So when we leave the theatre we feel
  Somehow better, more enriched than had we
  Never gone in that welcoming door to hear
  This most charming of arts, this most generous of gifts.
   
  Alexander McCall Smith

• 

• The Performance

  I know a man whose burden is a beautiful
  brown cello. He carries the instrument in
  a cumbersome white case. The case is dented
  and scratched, and has seen sunsets from
  Santiago to Berlin. The man that carries
  the case frowns at every hill. He grumbles
  as he shoulders his way through busy streets.
  He secretly envies the flautists. But the
  case carrier and the musician are not the same.
  They are separate in one body. One translates
  the great composers through memories of
  childhood. The other drinks whisky and spits
  phlegm into his sink. They both remember
  a visiting cellist who asked their class to raise
  a hand. The hand was measured. The musician
  says it was to test the strength of his fingers.
  The case carrier will tell you that the cellist
  never looked him in the eye. 

  William Letford

• 

• Der Ring des Nibelungen

  sixteen hours
  in the field

  to complete
  the harvest cycle:

  ploughshare
  to reaping blade

  dry days
  are our gold

  ripe barley
  our song sung loud

  black clouds
  approaching like gods

  could wreck all
  our bale towers

  our labours drowned
  in rain’s theatre.

  Jim Carruth

• 

• Job Centre: Opera Desk, Sopranos

  Soprano. Let me see. Well, there’s a
  crying need for Butterflies – kimono, sword and blood bag
  all laid on. In Royalty, a bunch of Queens (per usual):
  on top, one Scot, one not (a headless/barren choice of fates)?
  One blond Germanic bombshell (good at self-defence,
  but, frankly, dies on fire).
              Not quite your thing? Ok? Let’s try
  One seamstress, coughs to death (small frozen hands required)?
  One gormless jester’s daughter (bring own sack)? Hm?
  Slightly morbid, granted, still, they’re not the worst: this
  smart one – Cunning Vixen – winds up skinned.
  No, since you ask, no presidents, no judges,
  no inventors – just no call.
  No suicides, you say.
              Look, confidentially,
  see? Over there?
  The Glitter and be Gay desk? Worth a punt.
  They’ve Sprites and Sexy Servant Girls, and
  Tarts-with-Heart-of-Gold – there’s even Nuns.
  Don’t mention it! You’re welcome. And if
  those run dry, Contemporary.
  Say I sent you.
  They’ll know why.

  Janice Galloway

• 

• Seat 13, Row F

  Ticket stumps in wan han’ an’ programmes in the other
  She guides us tae oor seat.
  Just as six follows seven, twelve follows thirteen
  An’ with dimmed lights follows –

  Silence.
  Fu’ ae aw the hope ae Hope Street
  Unwrapped like hard-biled sweets

  Waiting… to be carried away on the backs ae lights too bright
  Corsets too tight, seats wi’ restricted sight, weans oan sugar high as kites
  Interval drinks that ur overpriced, ice cream tubs but never ony choc ice

  Empty tubs stashed unnerneath hopin’ naebody will see
  Downed pints ae lager, folk bursting fur a wee
  Walls built wi’ laughter and a moat filled wi’ tears
  Seat wi a number, a nicht tae forget whit we fear.

  But no long noo til the big light comes oan
  Wings clipped and snipped as we skulk oor way home.

  Johnny McKnight

• 

• You, in the chair

  Memory takes an interval, jaws drop
  like curtains as those loved for minutes take
  a fall, fall in love, break a leg, break

  apart. Words designed to draw emotion,
  words etched on brains, heard anew: a rose is
  a rose, and your smile and frown confirm you,

  as muse who directs from the gallery,
  the title you’ve re-scripted; your faces
  act as storyboard; their mouths as puppets

  strung by words and your reaction, Gulliver
  until you applaud – if you choose to do so,
  of course. Without an ear a song is just sound;
  the eye which reads the page creates the words.

  Plays are not for actors. Theatre is
  a conversation led by those in chairs.

  Kelsey Birt

• 

• An Opera to Last a Lifetime

  Before we’ve learned to say,
  we sing. Before learning, only song.
  Breathing song, seeing-hearing-smelling-tasting-
  touching everything-and-everyone song.

  Then words came. Words mean.
  Words matter. Words weigh out what
  it is we feel, what it is we do;
  what we are, what they are.

  Tearing apart what once was one –
  into here and there, into now and then,
  into theirs and yours and mine.

  And so, if we would live again,
  if we would share our lives again –

  Let’s sing and sing and SING!

  Ron Butlin

• 

• Second Date at the Theatre Royal

  It was Wallace and Gromit, for God’s sake,
  but I forgave you anything then;
  laughed at your mock limp
  ten minutes before curtain up.
  Your sister recommended it –
  she had kids and received wisdom
  while we had only electricity,
  sparks when our elbows touched.
  It was almost too much,
  not knowing we were all set,
  me, nervous enough to leave half-way through,
  so you could hug me at the underground,
  and point me towards home.

  Ciara MacLaverty

• 

• Un Bel Di
  (One fine day)

  This time I tell myself I will not cry.
  I will not let Puccini rip the heart
  right out of me, won’t let poor Butterfly
  undo me utterly. I’ll stay apart,
  above it all, in this gilded circle
  up in the gods, beyond the world of things,
  enjoy the passing show, the spectacle,
  and not be caught by it. But then she sings.
  We all wait for the night to pass, the dawn
  to break, we all stand watching on some shore,
  looking for that ship on the horizon,
  the plume of smoke that signals hope once more.
  She sings it, Un bel dì… And it’s no use –
  I weep for everything I love and lose.

  Alan Spence

• 

• The Theatre Royal’s gorgeous transformation to the Hall of a Thousand Lights

  As fast as Glasgow burned its theatres to the ground
  it built them back again – we couldn’t do
  without our plays and tunes, we need a dance
  and song to keep us going. This gaff’s given us
  the lot: couthie comics, rude rhymes, romance,
  camp and catchphrase, flicks (with music), Ali Baba’s
  thieves, diverse monsters (Mary Shelley’s, Columba’s),
  wafting Rhine Maidens, our very own Marie Loftus,
  a masked ball, a harlequinade, a circus,
  Dan Leno’s Orlando Dando, Henry Irving,
  and Sarah Bernhardt for one matinée only –
  not to mention the sensational telly
  (One O’Clock Gang still daft in the memory).

  Whatever walls come down, go up, go round,
  this magic box holds all, swirling, birling
  in the waiting darkness the works shine through.

  Hamish Whyte