Wexford Festival Opera Saturday, October 16th to Saturday, October 30, 2010.
“In this ideally intimate theatre [Wexford Opera House], in [Michael] Gieleta’s devastatingly truthful staging – beautiful abstract sets by James Macnamara, late 1940s costumes by Fabio Toblini, atmospheric lighting by Christopher Akerlind – this is a Wexford evening as near to perfection as any.”
- Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times – Oct 24, 2010
“.....under the benign aegis of the artistic director, David Agler, standards have rarely, if ever, been higher. .........the playing of the recently formed (ad hoc) Wexford Festival Orchestra far surpasses anything in the 1980s and 1990s. Both in Mercadante’s Virginia and Smetana’s Hubicka (The Kiss) it was the orchestral plying and the idiosyncratic conducting of the operas’ maestri, Carlos Izcaray – another product of the Venezuelan ‘Sistema’ of music education – and the Brno born Jaroslav Kyzlink, that caught my ear most consistently.”
- Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times – Oct 24, 2010
“Wexford has long been famous for “discovering” talented singers who go on to make big careers, and it has struck gold with Angela Meade in Virginia…....”
- Andrew Clark – Financial Times – Oct 20, 2010
“Musically , however, everything was convincing. The chorus is excellent, the orchestra beautifully toned and marvellously supportive of the singers, and the international cast does not have a weak link.”
– Declan Townsend – The Irish Examiner – Oct 20, 2010.
“Naturally, Wexford was gung-ho for doing what it traditionally does better than any other opera festival in the world – finding potentially great works and sprucing them up.”
- Dick O’Riordan – The Sunday Business Post – October 24, 2010
“Great performances all round, particularly from US bass-baritone Wayne Tigges as the devious Willie Wonka, Abigail Nims as Veruca and countertenor David Trudgen as Mike Teavee.”
- Dick O’Riordan – The Sunday Business Post – October 24, 2010