Published: 01 February 2012
Category: Vocal & Opera

Mezzo soprano Kai Rüütel will make her house debut at Scottish Opera on Saturday 4 February 4 as Hansel in Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel in a brand new production by Bill Bankes-Jones. Emmanuel Joël-Hornak conducts the orchestra of Scottish Opera. There will be further performances in Glasgow at the Theatre Royal on the 8, 10 and 12 February, when the production then moves to the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh with performances there on 14, 16, and 18 February.

This is Rüütel’s first major opera role since leaving the Jette Parker Young Artist programme at the Royal Opera House last summer. Hansel is a role that is close to her heart as she covered it at the Royal Opera House as a Jette Parker Young Artist, and sang the role on the main stage when Christine Rice fell ill in winter 2010. The Independent newspaper praised her performance: “Kai Rüütel as Hänsel bristles with the grumpiness unique to boys on the cusp of puberty, her voice crisp and forthright.”

Following Scottish Opera, Kai returns to the Royal Opera House where she will sing Meg Page Falstaff in a new production by Robert Carsen. In the autumn and winter of 2012 she sings Wellgunde in the revival of Keith Warner’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is one of the highlights of the Royal Opera Houses’s 2012/13 season.

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