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Local community invited to participate in official opening of Wexford Opera House

Wexford Opera House will officially open over the weekend of 5-7 September, culminating in a free-of-charge ‘Open Day’ when the building will be opened for the local community to visit.

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The official opening ceremony of the building will be performed by An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, on Friday, 5 September, prior to his appearance later that evening on Ireland’s most popular and longest-running chat show, The Late Late Show which will broadcast the first of its new season live from the main auditorium, the O’Reilly Theatre. The opening of the Opera House is a historic moment for Wexford and for Ireland. The €33 million landmark building has been just over two years in construction and will now serve as home for the annual Wexford Festival Opera, as well as run a year round programme of theatre, dance, concerts and other events.

Designed and project managed by the Office of Public Works, in association with Keith Williams & Associates Architects, the Wexford Opera House will seat up to 41% more audience than the previous Theatre Royal, thus ensuring a greater number can enjoy a wide variety of performances. The building comprises a main auditorium, the O’Reilly Theatre, seating up to 840 people and a second, highly flexible space, the Jerome Hynes Theatre, named in memory of the Festival’s inspirational former Chief Executive, with a seating capacity of 176.

Chief Executive David McLoughlin said, “We are thrilled to be at this milestone and be able to open the Wexford Opera House on time and on budget. We are particularly honoured that An Taoiseach has agreed to officially open the building, which is a major endorsement of it and of the local community. There is no better way to signal the building’s importance than by having RTÉ broadcast live its Late Late Show, showcasing the building to people across Ireland. It’s a major recognition of this high-tech and sophisticated building that RTE are willing to leave Montrose for only the 3rd time in the history of the chat show to come to Wexford. We are particularly excited about the Open Day on which public can get an up-close glimpse of this magnificent building. The people of Wexford and particularly the residents of High Street have been very supportive of the project and we are delighted to finally open the doors to them.”

How to Apply for Tickets

RTÉ Late Late Show
Tickets for the Wexford broadcast of the Late Late Show are strictly controlled by RTÉ. Free audience tickets can be applied for on their website. http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate

Open Day
The Open Day will be a free, but ticketed event. Tickets are available at our box office on High Street, Wexford (053) 912 2144, Lo call: 1850 4 OPERA or by logging onto http://www.wexfordopera.com

Each tour will last an hour starting from 9 am, with the last tour taking place at 5 pm. Each tour group will consist of 100 people who will be guided, by members of the Festival’s long-time volunteer crew, around all main areas of the building, including the O’Reilly Theatre and Jerome Hynes Theatre, the public bars and hospitality areas, including the panoramic view over-looking Wexford harbour from the McKenzie Room located on the top floor of the Opera House.

From now until the official opening of the Opera House on September 5th, there will be a series of acoustic tests and final tweaking of the building. The first full performance in the Opera House will be on October 16 - the opening gala premiere of the 57th Wexford Festival Opera, where audiences can look forward to a production of the enchanting Russian love story ‘Snegurochka ’ (The Snow Maiden) by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Although this and several other performances are long since sold out and booking continues to be heavy, there are still a number of tickets available for many of the events, via the Festival’s online booking system: http://www.wexfordopera.com

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