The Rose of Castile

Libretto by Augustus Glossop Harris and Edmund Falconer, after the libretto by Adolphe d’Ennery and Clairville (alias of Louis-François Nicolaïe (1811–1879) for Adolphe Adam’s Le muletier de Tolède (1854) .
Music by Michael William Balfe

The opera chosen for the first ‘Wexford Festival’, as it was known in 1951, was by Irish composer, Michael William Balfe (1808 – 1879) who had lived in Wexford for six years before his family moved to Dublin. Although not as well-known as the composer’s most notable The Bohemian Girl, the choice of opera was an early indicator of the programming philosophy that established Wexford on the international scene.

Like a lot of Balfe’s operas, the piece is rarely performed today. An opera written in three acts, it follows Elvira, Queen of León, who disguises herself as a peasant to avoid a forced marriage to Don Sebastian, arranged by the King of Castile. Along the way, she falls in love with a muleteer named Manuel, who is actually the King of Castile in disguise.

First performance 29 October 1857, at the Lyceum Theatre, London
Previously staged at Wexford Festival Opera at the first festival in 1951