David Agler first appeared at the Wexford festival in 1996 and took over as Artistic Director in 2005. Since my first visit to Wexford in 2008, I have returned every October to see him greet the audience before each performance at the entrance of the splendid National Opera House. Recently, on a...
As the 68th Festival approaches in just 12 short weeks, additional casting information has been announced as well as a cast change. The role of Admento in Dorilla in Tempe by Antonio Vivaldi will now be sung by Spanish Tenor Juan Sancho. In addition, casting details of the popular daytime ShortWork opera productions have also been announced. The ShortWork operas have become a main feature of the daytime programme. Intimately staged with piano accompaniment and lasting approximately 90 minutes, the ShortWork operas are presented in the nearby Clayton Whites Hotel and offer audiences the opportunity to enjoy a one-act opera performed by cast members of the evening operas.
From 7 pm (CEST), this Sunday 21 April, ARTE, the European public service broadcaster, will stream one of last year’s Wexford Festival Opera productions, Saverio Mercadante’s Il bravo, which was recently named ‘Best Opera Production’ at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. Il bravo will be freely available worldwide on ARTE’s digital on-demand culture channel, Arte Concert, as part of ARTE’s 2019 Opera Season, a special online service for lovers of classical music. The opera will subtitled in English, German and French. www.arte.tv/opera
Ahead of the opening of general booking for this year’s Wexford Festival Opera which goes on sale this Saturday, 13 April at 9.30, Artistic Director, David Agler today announced the cast for the forthcoming Festival.
Over the years the Festival has established an international reputation both for attracting and introducing new talent, many of whom have gone on to great international careers and this year is no exception. Artists from eleven countries will gather in Wexford this autumn to perform repertoire which they rarely have had the opportunity to sing before.
Wexford Festival Opera’s production of Il bravo by Saverio Mercandante was last night named, ‘Best Opera Production’ at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards ceremony in the National Concert Hall. This is the ninth win in this category since the Awards were introduced in 1997. Wexford Festival Opera have also received three other awards in the past including ‘Best Design’ for the opera Pénélope by Fauré in 2005, ‘Special Jury Prize’ for the then newly opened Wexford Opera House, now the National Opera House in 2008 and both the ‘Best Opera Production’ and ‘Audience Choice’ Awards in 2014 for the WW1-based opera Silent Night by Kevin Puts with libretto by Mark Campbell.