An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, T.D. formally opened the 60th Wexford Festival Opera in front of an estimated crowd of 20,000 in a ceremony on Wexford’s glorious quay front, following which a fanfare from the brass section of the Wexford Festival Orchestra triggered a spectacular fireworks display heralded the official start of the 16 day event. The 60th Anniversary Wexford Festival Opera runs until Saturday, November 5th.
Visit to World renowned festival one of her last official functions as Uachtarán na hÉireann
Wexford Festival Volunteer, Elizabeth Foley, first recipient of Wexford Festival Opera/Zurich Volunteers Award
Wexford Festival Opera, renowned for staging rarely-performed or unjustly neglected operas, had hoped to produce Francesca da Rimini by Saverio Mercadante at the 2012 Festival. Although Francesca da Rimini was written in 1831 it had never been performed, as the opera house it was written for burned to the ground before the opera could be produced. While a hand-written manuscript of the opera is in existence, it has never been printed. Attempts by Wexford Festival Opera to have a critical performing edition of the manuscript published in time for the 2012 Festival became fraught with unanticipated difficulties and forced the organisation to change its plans.