The Company's notable achievements include the world premiere of James MacMillan's Ines de Castro at the 1996 Edinburgh International Festival, and complete Ring cycles at the 2003 Edinburgh International Festival, which won the 2004 South Bank Show Award for Best Opera Production.

Recent commissions include Five:15 Operas Made in Scotland (2008-10) and Craig Armstrong's The Lady from the Sea, James MacMillan's Clemency and the double bill of Huw Watkins's In the Locked Room and Stuart MacRae's Ghost Patrol, which had their premieres at the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival (Ghost Patrol won a South Bank Sky Arts Award). In 2016, Scottish Opera premiered The Devil Inside, its third commission from composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh.

Scottish Opera aims to bring the widest range of opera, performed to the highest standards, to the maximum audience throughout Scotland and the UK. Each year it performs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness and dozens of other theatres, village halls and community centres across Scotland. It also operates an extensive programme of outreach and education work involving over 10,000 schoolchildren every year, as well as many other activities, including adult learning and the Unwrapped taster sessions.