10 things you didn't know about The Devil Inside

The Devil Inside is the latest opera from composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh, who you might know better as the award-winning author of The Cutting Room and the Plague Times trilogy. Since their first project together in 2009, Stuart and Louise's creative partnership has become so successful that The Times recently described them as 'fast becoming Scotland’s answer to Verdi and Boito.' High praise indeed!

The Devil Inside is Stuart and Louise's first full-length opera, but they've already got two shorter pieces under their belts. They first teamed up for Scottish Opera back in 2009 as part of Five: 15 – Operas Made in Scotland, and in 2012 they were back in action with Ghost Patrol, a 45-minute piece that premiered at Edinburgh International Festival and went on to win the South Bank Sky Arts Award. What a team!

The Devil Inside was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1891 short story The Bottle Imp. Stevenson wrote it following his travels in Hawaii and the South Seas. Librettist Louise Welsh recalls re-reading the book recently and realising it'd be perfect for an opera, with a nail-biting storyline that left her wondering 'How on earth are they going to get out of this?'

When creating the opera together, Stuart and Louise met up at least 30 times over a two-year period – often for four hours at a time – in art galleries, museums and cafés across the Central Belt. ‘In the early stages everything was up for grabs,’ says Louise. ‘We would talk about politics, philosophy, the characters, what themes are in the story. A lot of that doesn’t end up in the opera but I think those discussions add an integrity to the piece that hopefully resonates in some way.’

Glockenspiel, vibraphone, sleigh bells, log drum, crotales, tom toms, tam, tam: you name it, we've got it! Stuart MacRae's score features 21 types of percussion, and that's not to mention the different sticks, beaters, hammers and bows that percussionist Joanne McDowell uses to play them!

Composer Stuart MacRae explains, 'I knew I wanted it to be a strange sound world, I wanted things to sound out of order, out of tune, reedy.' To achieve the malevolent sound of the bottle imp, Stuart has orchestrated a whole range of unusual instruments for you to listen out for, including a harmonica (played by our First Violin), a bagpipe chanter (played by our Oboist) and even a balloon!

Louise explains, 'This is a story very much for the 21st century – it's set here and now – which of course is what Stevenson did with his great classics. We see Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in their top hats and we think of that as being historical but of course it is the fashion of the period, which meant the stories were mind-blowing for people at the time: a Gothic story, but it’s now!’

Since its world premiere on Saturday, The Devil Inside has been attracting great feedback from the press. In a string of five-star reviews, it's been described as 'a consistently dramatic contemporary opera boasting superb performances' by The Herald, 'a finely paced, immaculately crafted piece' by The Guardian, and 'a brilliant new work' by Opera Britannia. And it's not just the critics who love it. 'Superb', 'gripping', 'intelligent and moving' are just some of the wonderful words audience members have been using to describe the show. Have you seen it yet? Send us your thoughts via Twitter!

Louise explains, 'Some of my best experiences in the theatre have been when you go with friends and you come out arguing about the rights and wrongs of what happened. I like that idea of people leaving the theatre and still partly being inside the world of the opera, thinking about it and discussing it.'

After performances on Friday 29 & Saturday 30 January at King's Theatre Edinburgh, The Devil Inside embarks on an England and Wales tour as well as a trip across the pond to Tapestry Opera in Toronto. Bon voyage, lads and lassies!