Scottish Opera does not have a production at the Edinburgh International Festival because it was £200,000 cheaper to hire a German company.

Scottish Opera does not have a production at the Edinburgh International Festival because it was £200,000 cheaper to hire a German company, it was revealed last night.

Jonathan Mills, artistic director of the EIF, said he had approached the national company to stage an opera but it had proved considerably cheaper to work with Cologne Opera instead. He said that is was "prohibitively expensive" to work with Scottish Opera because they are not as heavily subsidised as foreign opera companies, and do not have their own in-house chorus, a legacy of heavy cost-cutting three years ago.

Mr Mills said the new £2m Expo Fund announced by Linda Fabiani, the Culture Minister, may help co-productions between the EIF and Scottish Opera in the future. The director said the proposed project was similar, but not identical, to the new production of Richard Strauss's Capriccio, performed by Oper Koln in a co-production with the festival, staged at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre this week. Mr Mills revealed the reasons for the absence of Scottish Opera at a public debate on the future of the entire festival season, held yesterday afternoon at The Hub venue.

Last night Alex Reedijk, the opera's general director, said he would have loved to have worked with the new festival director but as he was also new to his role, there had been insufficient time to turn around the right production. He denied the decision had been based on cost.