Wexford Festival Opera News

Amendment to programme announced following move to Level 3 of the Government’s COVID-19 Plan

The 69th Wexford Festival Opera will run from Sunday, 11 October – Sunday, 18 October. Audiences are invited to experience the magic at home as the festival goes online for this year only.  Ahead of the festival commencing some amendments to the programme have been made following recent Government restrictions under its Level 3 Resilience and National Recovery plan.

Irish soprano Claudia Boyle and Sicilian tenor Pietro Adaini will now join the Wexford Festival Orchestra and conductor Francesco Cilluffo to deliver the closing night concert, replacing the American soprano Lisette Oropesa, who is now regrettably unable to travel.

Wexford Festival Opera performs on the Town with a series of free Pop-up events

Wexford Festival Opera will go on the town in Wexford with a series of daily Pop-up events comprising multidisciplinary performances featuring music, drama, singing and dance, which will be performed in various shops and businesses around Wexford town. Streamed daily on Facebook Live www.facebook.com/wexfordfestivalopera, to encourage audiences to observe social distancing guidelines, the Pop-up events are a central part of new Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi’s vision to bring the Festival closer to the people of Wexford. 

Some of the most famous stars from the opera world to take part in a very special Gala Concert

Gala Concert – Remote Voices, supported by Ecclesiastical in partnership with RTÉ Culture as part of Waiting for Shakespeare …The Festival in the air.  Experience the magic for yourself, Friday 16th October 2020 as audiences across Ireland and around the world will have a chance to experience a taste of the magic of Wexford Festival Opera at home. From their home to your's comes performances from:Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky and many more.

A new opera written during lockdown with three alternative endings to premiere this October

While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera. When Wexford Festival Opera realised that the pandemic meant that they would be reimaging this year’s Festival, Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi reached out to Andrew. She asked him if he would create a new opera to premiere as part of ‘Waiting for Shakespeare …The Festival in the air’ which audiences could enjoy online this October.

Written intensely over three months ‘What Happened to Lucrece’ was created with an online audience in mind and has three different endings. Composer and Artist-in-Residence at Wexford Festival Opera, Andrew Synnott’s new opera commissioned by the festival, is based on the Shakespeare narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece, about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia.