An interview with the Artistic Director of Paisley Opera
Paisley – this town in Renfrewshire is one of Scotland’s biggest, in size and in history. According to Paisley Opera’s website, the artistic director of Paisley Opera today, Simon Hannigan, moved to Paisley in 2010 and “instantly fell in love with the town”. In fact, he saw Paisley as the “ideal place” for his vision to reintroduce opera in a more accessible way for urban residents.
Fast-forward seven years to December, 2017, where Paisley Opera is presenting their new performance at the Abbey in Paisley and Simon Hannigan is “excited” for the show in which he features multiple times as one of the main characters and singers.
With the preparation for the show beginning back around June, Simon and the volunteer chorus and everyone involved in the production for the show have done an “amazing job” according to Simon. “The volunteer chorus worked particularly hard over the last six months to get to this stage” he states, as I interview him two hours before the first show on the 8th of December. A lone singer practices the chorus and it echoes off of the ancient stone walls of Paisley Abbey, the location for the show.
“It works perfectly here…I think it’s really important because this building connects to this story and was directly involved in the events at the time” Simon replies, when asked about why Paisley Abbey was chosen to hold the event. “It’s a really important part of this history, and I think the stories are too”
The stories Simon is referring to is that of the Paisley witch trials, the events that inspired this production in the first place. These witch trials transpired in Paisley, Scotland between the years 1696-1697. One of the main accusers of this community in Paisley was a young girl by the name of Christian Shaw, who condemned multiple people to death. Simon Hannigan explains that, “coming from a modern perspective, most people would accept that it’s completely nuts” at the idea to accuse someone of witchcraft, but he also explains that “we need to see it in the spirit of the times that people believed very firmly in the devil and embodiment of evil”.
Portraying real life historic events such as this, which cost multiple people their lives, I ask, must have added pressure? “I think so” he goes on, “I think the Witch’ story is a fascinating and tragic story and is very much a part of Paisley…people like a grim story. Everybody’s different and people are coming to see it for different reasons”.
And indeed, people came to see this event, with both nights of the Opera being almost completely sold out, to which Simon states that he was “surprised and delighted”.
As rehearsals were wrapping up and it was time for dress and makeup, Simon left me with this: “Opera is very good at expressing emotion…a very powerful medium… and that’s really what we’re trying to do in this piece”.
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