Madama Butterfly Programme by irishnationalopera

puccini

madama butterfly

Irish national opera principal funder

Giacomo Puccini

1858-1924

madama butterfly 1904

In association with Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in partnership with RTÉ concert Orchestra A Japanese Tragedy in three acts, founded on the book by John L Long and the drama by David Belasco. Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. First performance Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 17 February 1904 (two Act version); Teatro Grande, Brescia, 28 May 1904 (three Act version). First performance in Ireland, Theatre Royal, Dublin, 2 January 1908.

Sung in Italian with English surtitles

Acknowledgements The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Abbey Theatre, Flagman, Ian Thompson, Ronan O’Reilly and all the staff at Artane School of Music, Wexford Festival Opera, National Opera House, David Stuttard.

Accommodation Partner

Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes including an interval of 20 minutes after Act I. The performance on Thursday 28 March will be recorded by RTÉ lyric fm for future broadcast and filmed for future streaming. It will be available on demand on the RTÉ Player and www.rte.ie/culture.

PERFORMANCES 2019 Sunday 24 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin Tuesday 26 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin Thursday 28 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin Saturday 30 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin Thursday 4 April Cork Opera House Cork Friday 5 April Cork Opera House Cork

GETTING INTO GEAR

Fergus Sheil Artistic director

Welcome to Madama Butterfly, Irish National Opera’s third production of 2019. The first few months of the year really encapsulate everything our young company stands for. Our 13 performances of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice took us to venues all around Ireland and brought our first visits to Tallaght, Drogheda, Bray, Waterford, Carlow, Celbridge and Ennis. When our run of Madama Butterfly ends, we will have performed in 21 venues, in cities and towns, large and small. We had large and enthusiastic audiences for every stop on our Orfeo ed Euridice tour, and it’s hugely encouraging that there is a palpable hunger for great productions of opera in so many places around the country. The day after finishing Orfeo ed Eurydice we flew to Amsterdam for our mainland European company début. Our award-winning production of The Second Violinist by Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh, which we co-produce with Landmark Productions, featured in Dutch National Opera’s prestigious Opera Forward Festival in Amsterdam. It was a source of enormous pride to bring such a highly accomplished production, written and performed by Irish artists, to one of the world’s most important forums for contemporary opera. Madama Butterfly is our first new production of 2019 and our first opportunity to showcase the voice and charisma of soprano Celine Byrne. She is not just one of Ireland’s outstanding operatic talents but also one of the Artistic Partners of Irish National Opera. Butterfly is the first of several productions we are planning with her. Of course she won’t be the first Irish soprano to excel in this role. Mayo soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan won praise as Butterfly from Puccini himself in 1919. He later coached her personally in the title role of his Manon Lescaut. And she is reputed to have worn, at a

Covent Garden production in June 1925, the actual costume that was worn by Rosina Storchio, the Madama Butterfly in the opera’s first production at La Scala in Milan in 1904. I like to imagine that Puccini would also love how Celine fully inhabits the sincere, vulnerable and unshakable character of Cio-Cio-San, and how she sings with a divine effortless sound. There is a wealth of other vocal talent on stage in our Madama Butterfly. We welcome back tenor Julian Hubbard to the role of Pinkerton – he made his company debut in the title role of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann last September. Julian has the unenviable task of portraying a thoroughly objectionable character through the medium of profoundly beautiful music. I’m also thrilled to welcome the velvet-voiced Brett Polegato back to Dublin to sing Sharpless. Brett, who was praised for his work in William Bolcom’s Dinner at Eight at Wexford Festival Opera last October, last appeared in Dublin as Kurwenal in Wide Open Opera’s Tristan und Isolde in 2012. Two wonderful Irish mezzos, Doreen Curran as Suzuki and Niamh O’Sullivan as Kate Pinkerton, also make their INO débuts. Tonight’s creative team – Ben Barnes, Libby Seward, Todd Rosenthal, Joan O’Clery, John Comiskey and Timothy Redmond – have all worked imaginatively to create a production that captures the beauty and tragedy of Madama Butterfly but which also offers a 21st-century perspective on the troubling issues of imperialism and cultural appropriation that are thrown up by this early 20th-century score. Big venue productions like Madama Butterfly require a large number of people to sing from the same hymn-sheet – literally as well as metaphorically. I want to extend my sincere thanks to our partners in the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, and also to our colleagues in the Cork Opera House, where we are performing for the first time. Thanks also to the full roster of artists and members of the production team, and to our INO staff and board members who all contribute their behind-the-scenes work with dedication and skill. Our work is funded by the Arts Council and helped by an expanding pool of supporters and patrons. They are also an integral part of the INO family. You, too, can join them, by coming on board to help expand and develop the range of work we do. In the meantime, get your tissues ready and enjoy the show!

a ily er m op e fa An l th l ra fo

MOZART

THE MAGIC FLUTE Friday 17 may National Opera House Wexford Sunday 19 may University Concert Hall limerick tuesday 21 – saturday 25 May Gaiety Theatre Dublin

Founders Circle

F.X. & Pat O’Brien

Anonymous

Roy & Aisling Foster

Joseph O’Dea

Desmond Barry & John Redmill

Howard Gatiss

Dr J R O’Donnell

Valerie Beatty & Dennis Jennings

Genesis

Deirdre O’Donovan & Daniel Collins

Mark & Nicola Beddy

Hugh & Mary Geoghegan

Diarmuid O’Dwyer

Carina & Ali Ben Lmadani

Diarmuid Hegarty

Patricia O’Hara

Mary Brennan

M Hely Hutchinson

Annmaree O’Keefe & Chris Greene

Angie Brown

Gemma Hussey

Carmel & Denis O’Sullivan

Breffni & Jean Byrne

Kathy Hutton & David McGrath

Líosa O’Sullivan & Mandy Fogarty

Jennifer Caldwell

Nuala Johnson

Hilary Pratt

Seán Caldwell & Richard Caldwell

Susan Kiely

Sue Price

Caroline Classon, in memoriam David Warren, Gorey

Timothy King & Mary Canning

Landmark Productions

J & N Kingston

Audrey Conlon

Riverdream Productions

Kate & Ross Kingston

Gerardine Connolly

Nik Quaife & Emerson Bruns

Silvia & Jay Krehbiel

Jackie Connolly

Margaret Quigley

Karlin Lillington & Chris Horn

Gabrielle Croke

Patricia Reilly

Stella Litchfield

Sarah Daniel

Dr Frances Ruane

Jane Loughman

Maureen de Forge

Catherine Santoro

Rev Bernárd Lynch & Billy Desmond

Doreen Delahunty & Michael Moriarty

Dermot & Sue Scott

Lyndon MacCann S.C.

Yvonne Shields

Phyllis Mac Namara

Fergus Sheil Sr

Tony & Joan Manning

Gaby Smyth

R. John McBratney

Matthew Patrick Smyth

Mareta & Conor Doyle

Ruth McCarthy, in memoriam Niall & Barbara McCarthy

Bruce Stanley

Noel Doyle & Brigid McManus

Petria McDonnell

Michael Duggan

Jim McKiernan

Catherine & William Earley

Jean Moorhead

Jim & Moira Flavin

Sara Moorhead

Ian & Jean Flitcroft

Joe & Mary Murphy

Anne Fogarty

Ann Nolan & Paul Burns

Joseph Denny Kate Donaghy Marcus Dowling

James & Sylvia O’Connor John & Viola O’Connor

Sara Stewart The Wagner Society of Ireland Julian & Beryl Stracey Michael Wall & Simon Nugent Brian Walsh & Barry Doocey Judy Woodworth

Maire & Maurice Foley

irishnationalopera.ie 07

opera partnerships

Diego Fasciati Executive Director

Welcome to year two of your new national opera company. True to our name, we started the year with a national tour of our acclaimed production Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, which we originally presented to sold-out houses at last year’s Galway International Arts Festival. Now we are making a happy return to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre with our first Puccini opera, and we will then take this all-new Madama Butterfly down to the real capital or southern capital – the choice is yours – for our first visit to the Cork Opera House. In 2018 we invested a great deal of behind-the-scenes effort in matters that may not seem very exciting – policy development, staff recruitment, and setting up internal procedures. This essential work is not only intended to establish the firm foundation to enable us focus our energies with high efficiency on delivering first-rate productions. It will also help us expand the range and reach of our work. Puccini continues to be one of the world’s best loved composers. No less than three of his works consistently appear in the list of the top ten most performed operas. And yet, in the main, his name is not readily associated with a particular librettist. We may all be familiar with the Mozart-Da Ponte duo, or Gilbert & Sullivan, and, to borrow from musical theatre, Rodgers and Hammerstein. All formed artistic partnerships that led to the creation of memorable works. Puccini’s best operas, the same three that are on the top ten list, were in fact all written by the same playwright duo of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Illica provided the dialogue for La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly and Giacosa turned it into verse. And, strange as it may seem, Puccini’s music publisher, Giulio Ricordi, also made shrewd interventions. Of course, an

excellent libretto cannot salvage a poor composition. But it seems no accident that the Illica-Giacosa team elicited Puccini’s most extraordinary music and characterisation. A contemporary and highly synergetic artistic partnership is that of composer Donnacha Dennehy and writer Enda Walsh. Their collaboration to date has yielded The Last Hotel and The Second Violinist, two nationally and internationally successful recent operas. Earlier this month we made our continental European debut, with our co-producer Landmark Productions, when The Second Violinist was presented by Dutch National Opera at the Muziekgebouw aan ’t Ij in Amsterdam. It was in fact the second Irish opera to feature in that venue in 2019. Just over a week earlier, an international production of Jennifer Walshe’s Time, Time, Time had its premiere there. It’s great to be part of a development that is seeing such a remarkable growth of Irish opera on international stages. Money may make the world go around. But partnerships are equally important for opera companies around the world. We could not have brought you Madama Butterfly without our partnership with the wonderful musicians of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the support of Stephen Faloon and his team at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, and the indispensable support of the Arts Council. Our Friends & Patrons are also uniquely valued partners who support and enable our work, and we are currently seeking corporate partners who share our passion for excellence. As we embark on the first new production of our second year, we thank everyone who has made our success possible, not least you, the audience, without whom we would just be singing to ourselves. Keep on coming and we’ll keep on delivering. 09

true love and colonialism

ben barnes Director

Arguably, Madama Butterfly is one of the greatest operas ever written. And it has spawned many other works of art attesting to the fact that its tragic tale of love and betrayal continues to exercise a powerful hold on the Western imagination. Most famously, it partly inspired the blockbuster musical Miss Saigon, with its story of a doomed romance between a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier. David Henry Hwang’s Tony Awardwinning play M. Butterfly depicts the tragic love story between a Peking Opera star and a French diplomat, and was subsequently adapted for the screen by David Cronenberg. Less well known, perhaps, are Malcolm McLaren’s chart hit sampling of the famous aria, Un bel dì vedremo, and the American rock band Weezer’s second album, Pinkerton. How then in 2019 to begin to approach a production of an opera which has become a cornerstone of European art? Outside of the popular cultural tourism space you would be hard pressed to find a staging of the work which does not in some way challenge traditional ideas about the opera and its Japanese setting. Why is this? Partly, I think, it is because Butterfly, the geisha, is a figment of the Western imagination that does not bear much scrutiny. Puccini and his contemporaries were enthralled by the art of Japan which had been closed to the world during the Edo period. However, they fell for a manufactured, customdesigned image of the women of the “mysterious east” – beautiful, feminised, sexually available and alluring, quiet and small, and ripe for the kind of exploitation personified by Pinkerton who can buy and then abandon his young bride with impunity. The Consul, Sharpless, more than once sounds a critical note. But his concerns are swept away by Pinkerton’s swashbuckling Yankee

exceptionalism, which holds that all things American are morally, politically and economically superior. It might be argued that Pinkerton’s regret for his abandonment of Butterfly is heartfelt in Act III, but it does not stop him running away from his responsibilities and allowing others to do his dirty work for him. In this production his new wife, Kate is witness to this ambivalence and moral cowardice, suggesting, perhaps, that the future of the golden American couple may not be as secure and rosy as it is assumed to be. Joyce Carol Oates or Ann Tyler might have had fun with the after-story of The Pinkertons of Kansas City, Missouri, or wherever they hail from. An equivocal response to Pinkerton’s morally dubious act is typical of the European elite of Puccini’s time, who felt secure in the righteousness of “the white man’s burden,” with their guilt-free mission to civilise the “backward savages” and their conviction of their own superiority. This response, however, is not available to any thinking person at the end of the second decade of the 21st century. Aware as we are now of the ruination caused by discredited expansionist policies throughout the world, the only truthful way to respond to this story is to see it as a metaphor for shameless colonial adventurism. So, rather than dabble in Japonisme we have chosen to create a framing device which pits Orient and Occident against each other, and where, if time and place is referenced at all, it is to remind us not of some distant time (the Russo-Japanese War 1904-05, during which the opera was premiered) but of a more recent, disastrous meddling in Asian affairs – the French and American incursion of the 1950s and 1960s into Vietnam and Cambodia. Nothing should get in the way of this tragic love story which features some of the most beautiful music ever written. But the shameful way in which Butterfly is treated and the shocking denouement as she is robbed of her child and takes her own life sound the Conradian heart of darkness, the obverse of the colonial dream of law, order and right living. Woody Allen wrote “People marry and die. Pinkerton does not return”. Would that he had never come in the first place.

synopsis Act I Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an

American soldier-adventurer, a lieutenant in the United States Navy, is shown around his newlyacquired Asian property by the local fixer, Goro. He is shortly to marry an impoverished girl, CioCio-San, known as Butterfly, and the house will be his love nest. Sharpless, the American Consul, arrives and the two men enjoy a drink as Pinkerton expounds his convenient and easy philosophy of love. Pinkerton has bought the house on a lease he can relinquish at any moment, and he boasts that he can also marry his bride and abandon her when he wishes to settle down with an American wife. Sharpless, who heard of Cio-Cio-San and knows how seriously and genuinely she takes Pinkerton’s proposal, warns against this laissez-faire attitude. Pinkerton, in his excitement and anticipation, dismisses these concerns. Butterfly and her friends arrive and pay their respects. We learn that Cio-Cio-San comes from a good family fallen on hard times. She shows Pinkerton her possessions, including the sword her father used in his ritual suicide. Her relatives arrive noisily and the brief wedding ceremony takes place. Pinkerton is congratulated by the Commissioner and a toast is proclaimed to the happy couple by the relatives.

This is interrupted by the arrival of one of CioCio-San’s uncles, the Bonze, who reveals that she has renounced her own religion in favour of that of her new husband. The relatives, who only a moment earlier were toasting the newly weds, now turn on the frightened bride. Pinkerton steps in and scatters the mob. As evening draws in the maid Suzuki and the servants prepare the house. The newly weds proclaim their love for one another and retire for the night.

Act II It is three years later. Pinkerton has not returned. The house, now kitted out with the trappings of American life and culture, is tired and drab and a short-tempered Cio-Cio-San and her hearful servant Suzuki await the return of the man of the house.

Sharpless arrives with a letter from Pinkerton, but before he can read it Goro appears with the rich merchant, Yamadori, who is seeking to marry Cio-Cio-San. She stubbornly refuses to accept that her abandonment by Pinkerton signifies that she is available to marry again. She cites American laws and customs, now that she herself is an American by marriage and by conviction. Yamadori is refused and dejectedly goes away leaving Sharpless to convey the news that Pinkerton will not be coming back. In her desperation Cio-Cio-San reveals that she has borne a child by Pinkerton and introduces him to the Consul. There is no doubt that the blue-eyed child is that of BF Pinkerton. Before dismissing Sharpless, Cio-Cio-San briefly imagines what it would be like to go back to a vagrant existence. She concludes that she would prefer to end her life rather than countenance that dishonour. Sharpless leaves, and Suzuki tries to comfort Cio-Cio-San. She is interrupted by the arrival of Pinkerton’s ship, the Abraham Lincoln, in the harbour. With renewed hope Cio-Cio-San hails the arrival of her husband and she and Suzuki settle in for the long vigil of waiting through the night having first strewn the floor with flowers to welcome home the long-absent husband.

Act III Dawn comes and the city awakens. Cio-Cio-San has not moved from her position all night but is now persuaded by Suzuki to rest. No sooner has she gone to bed than Pinkerton and Sharpless arrive to reveal that Pinkerton has married again and his new wife, Kate, is in the garden. They have come to take Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San’s child away to a better life in the United States. Suzuki is persuaded to help them and Pinkerton leaves again, unable to cope with his conflicting emotions. Cio-Cio-San awakens and returns to learn her terrible fate from Suzuki and to encounter the woman who has taken her place. Kate assures Cio-Cio-San that she will take good care of the child. CioCio-San acquiesces and asks that they all return in half an hour when the child will be ready to go with them. In one desperate attempt to avert the inevitable Suzuki leads the child, who is named Sorrow, into the room. Cio-Cio-San bids farewell to Sorrow and blindfolds him to spare him the sight of his mother’s death as she uses the sword her father used in his suicide to take her own life. Pinkerton and Sharpless arrive back, but it is too late.

CAST

Creative Team

Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San) Celine Bryne Soprano BF Pinkerton (Lieutenant in the United States Navy) Julian Hubbard Tenor Sharpless (United States Consul) Brett Polegato Baritone Suzuki (Cio-Cio-San’s servant) Doreen Curran Mezzo-soprano Goro (a marriage broker) Eamonn Mulhall Tenor The Bonze (Cio-Cio-San’s uncle) John Molloy Bass Kate Pinkerton (24, 26, 28, 30 March) Niamh O’Sullivan Mezzo-soprano Kate Pinkerton (4, 5 April) Rachel Croash Soprano Prince Yamadori Brendan Collins Baritone The Imperial Commissioner Robert McAllister Baritone The Official Registrar Kevin Neville Baritone Yakusidé Cormac Lawlor Baritone Cio-Cio-San’s Mother Bríd Ní Ghruagáin Mezzo-soprano Cio-Cio-San’s Cousin Amy Ní Fhearraigh Soprano Cio-Cio-San’s Aunt Margaret Bridge Mezzo-soprano Sorrow (Cio-Cio-San’s child) (24, 30 March, 5 April) Jordi McQuaid Román Sorrow (Cio-Cio-San’s child) (26, 28 March, 4 April) Jack Manning

Conductor Timothy Redmond Director Ben Barnes Set Designer Todd Rosenthal Costume Designer Joan O’Clery Lighting Designer John Comiskey Movement Director & Choreographer Libby Seward Video Designer Aaron Kelly Assistant Conductor & Chorus Director Sinead Hayes Assistant Director Sarah Baxter Répétiteur Aoife O’Sullivan Assistant Répétiteur Rebecca Warren

CHORUS Soprano

Mezzo Soprano

Tenor

Lorna Breen

Molly Adams-Toomey

Morgan Crowley

Gabrielle Dundon

Rheanne Breen

Ben Escorcio

Susie Gibbons

Margaret Bridge

Keith Kearns

Ami Hewitt

Amy Conneely

Philip Keegan

Corina Ignat

Madeline Judge

Luis Magallanes

Naho Koizumi

Sarah Kilcoyne

John McKeown

Kelli-Ann Masterson

Bríd Ní Ghruagáin

Oisín Ó Dálaigh

Maria McGrann

Martha O’Brien

Peter O’Reilly

Muireann Mulrooney

Niamh St John

Tim Shaffrey

Amy Ní Fhearraigh

Rachel Spratt

Jacek Wislocki

rtÉ Concert ORCHESTRA First Violins Mia Cooper (Leader) Bróna Cahill Ștefana Ivan-Roncea Eileen Comer Sébastien Petiet Hugh Murray Anita Vedres Emily Thyne Lidia Jewloszewicz-Clarke Jane Hackett Second Violins Elizabeth Leonard Anne Phelan Carol Quigley Siúbhán Ní Ghríofa Camille Farrar Christine Kenny Matthew Wylie Emma Masterson Violas Lisanne Melchior Elizabeth O’Neill David Kenny Margaret Lynch Marie-Louise Bowe Carla Vedres

Cellos Yue Tang Margaret Doris Delia Lynch Sokol Koka Yseult Cooper Stockdale Enrien Lamcellari Double Basses Seamus Doyle Liam Wylie Bryan Quigley Alex Felle Flutes Deirdre Brady Katie Hyland Naoise Ó Briain Oboes Suzie Thorn Patricia Corcoran David Agnew

Production Team Horns Cormac Ó hAodáin Declan McCarthy Fearghal Ó Ceallacháin Andre Cavanagh Trumpets Eoin Daly Eamonn Nolan Will Palmer Trombones Stephen Mathieson Michael Marshall Jon Clifford Bass Trombone Christopher Nery Timpani Oliver Taylor

Clarinets Michael Seaver Patrick Burke Anne Harper

Percussion James Dunne Stephen Kelly Noel Eccles Paddy Nolan Maeve O’Hara

Bassoons John Leonard Ian Forbes

Harp Geraldine O’Doherty

Production Manager Rob Usher Company Stage Manager Paula Tierney

Costume Assistant Tara Mulvihill Ciara Geaney Ciara Fleming

Assistant Stage Manager Alison White

Costume Makers Denise Assas Anne O’Mahony Breege Fahy Yvane Bude

Technical Stage Manager Adrian Leake

Tailor Gillian Carew

Master Carpenter Peter Boyle

Wigs, Hair & Makeup Carole Dunne

Chief Electrician Simon Burke

Wigs & Makeup Assistants Tee Elliot Paula Meliàn

Stage Manager Conleth Stanley

Lighting Programmer Eoin McNinch Costume Supervisor Sinéad Lawlor

Milliner Edwin Ryan Set Construction Theatre Production Services

Props Supervisor Eimer Murphy (courtesy of the Abbey Theatre)

Scenic Artist Sandra Butler Surtitle Operator Maeve Sheil Lighting Provider Cue One Video Hire Stage Sound Services Screen Printing Big Image Systems Chaperones Ashling Manning Steven Manning Paraic McQuaid Yolanda Román

Additional Thanks to Transport Trevor Price Odie Sherwin Graphic Design Alphabet Soup

Photography Shane McCarthy Patrick Redmond

Promotional Video Gansee Films Mark Cantan Programme edited by Michael Dervan

being celine byrne WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE FIRST OPERA YOU WENT TO? I don’t remember its name. I know it was in Italian. It was in La Scala. I was 18. And it was the opera that enticed me to become an opera singer. I always loved singing. And it was only from watching an opera that I looked and said, I’d love to do that kind of singing. I had no idea of classical music or classical singing. I hadn’t even taken my first singing lessons. It changed my life. I just remember being emotionally moved and thinking this is just amazing. I was learning Italian at the time, I was living in Italy, I remember that the language wasn’t even a barrier. I was able to understand exactly what was happening on stage.

What do you remember from your first appearance on an opera stage? I remember it was Carmen, in the chorus of Opera Ireland. I had one line, one that wasn’t even written in the opera. When Escamillo, the matador, comes to the village, I had to go and say, “Escamillo!” – she says the name in an artificially high voice – and then the music started for his scene. That was it. I thought I was great with my one line. I loved being on stage, even from a young age, when I was in musical societies. I love engrossing myself in a different character. You feel so free being somebody else and not yourself.

It was huge. It was La Scala. I thought all opera houses looked like this. I was so naive. I remember sitting there and crying, and being really embarrassed because I was thinking the people beside me would think there was something wrong with me, because they weren’t crying.

Being in the chorus was great craic. I enjoyed the rehearsals, meeting people, being on stage. I loved all the social element of it as well. Sometimes I got in trouble for talking too much. But that always happened in school, anyway. I always got in trouble for talking and making people laugh.

I hadn’t got a clue about this artform. I knew it existed, but I’d never experienced it. I didn’t grow up in a house where there was classical music. So I was never introduced to it in any way. So to go and see something like that, I was totally overwhelmed. It wasn’t until years later that I consciously decided to buy a ticket and go to the opera. That was Opera Ireland, I went to see Rigoletto, and I loved it. Then I understood it. I was actively listening to every element. Before, it was more a passive listening. But even though it was passive, it engrossed me.

What was exciting for me was to watch the principals rehearse, to see the way they worked, and to learn from that. I went to rehearsals that didn’t involve the chorus, just to watch and listen. I knew the opera, but I’d never seen it in performance. It was an opportunity for me to see it from the other side of the stage.

What was the best opera or singing advice you ever got? From Ronnie Dunne [Veronica Dunne, her singing teacher]. When I went to her I had good technique, I think. I had my studies in the DIT, where I had a very good teacher, Edith Forrest. When I went to Ronnie she said I came to her like a rough diamond. She just needed to polish me. The best advice she gave me was, “Just imagine I’m there giving you a kick up the arse. Go out on the stage, put your two feet on the ground and sing.” Because, before that, I was always afraid of what people thought of me. I’m very insecure. I’d love to meet a person who said they weren’t insecure. I’m very insecure even though I might contradict myself and say I’m very self-aware. When I went to her I was still very insecure. I always thought that people were judging me, or saying I might have done something wrong. I was always afraid I would make a mistake. She’s the one who made me get out there and sing. All I can do is my best. If I was to give advice to a singer, I would just say try and do your best, don’t sing outside of your Fach [Fach is a German word denoting the categorisation of voice types]. Take it easy. Everything will come to you in the end. Take care of yourself, and your mental health especially. You can’t sing on a tired voice.

What is the most annoying misconception about opera?

see how they tell the story in a totally different way. That’s interesting to me.

That it’s elitist. Because it’s not. I think people just say that because they can’t identify with it, or because they’re not familiar with it. That’s all. We are a nation of music and dance. It’s just another artform that maybe we haven’t created, but that came into our country, and it’s also all around the world. Thanks be to God we have Irish National Opera now. Before this we were the only capital city in Europe without a full-time opera company. We do have Wexford, before anyone starts losing their nut. But that’s festival opera, and it’s not in the capital. I’m talking about a national opera company. Now that we have this, opera is more accessible to us. This is a great opportunity for the arts in Ireland, and for performers like myself to perform here. Up to now I was performing abroad, and I’ve never worked at Wexford. It’s great now that I can perform at home, be with my family, and work at home.

In the Butterfly that I’m doing in Germany, simultaneously to this one in Ireland, one of the biggest factors is that they don’t have a child. The relationship with Suzuki and Butterfly is not a platonic one. They’re like partners. I think that’s interesting. Of course, as an artist, I’m going, Oh no! I need to have that baby to come in and sing E questo? [And this? when Butterfly shows Sharpless her child], which is the most beautiful music, such rich orchestration. And when you don’t have a baby to show, you have to do something else, and find another reason for the music.

What moment do you most look forward to when you go to a performance of Madama Butterfly? Now that I’ve worked in Germany so much, I’m familiar with their Regietheater [literally, “director’s theatre”]. Regietheater is more about the production of the piece. I’m interested in seeing performances, especially in Germany, to

This is for me the most heart-breaking thing in the opera, along with saying goodbye to the child. I’m a mom. I really feel this. I have to be careful not to get emotionally involved. I have to act, of course. But not let the emotion drive me too much, because then that will affect the singing.

What’s the most challenging aspect of singing Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly? Just that point, the emotional part of it. It’s the most difficult role that Puccini has written for the female, well, for any voice, that and Turandot. It’s known as one of the most difficult roles in the repertoire. For many reasons. The voice goes up so high, it goes up to a C, and then it goes down. You’re going from high to low. Emotionally, you really have to be a good

actress and really act the part without getting too emotionally involved. And you have to have really good technique. There’s a lot in it. This is my fourth production of Butterfly. I feel I’ve got a handle on it now. But I’m stepping away from it now, at least for the next five years. I’m still young. And I still want to sing the other lyric repertoire. I want to keep my voice young and fresh. I’m going to put it to bed for a while.

What has been your recipe for success? What is success? How do people value success, or rate success? For me, if you’re saying that I’m successful, then I would say that the reason I feel I am is because I’m happy. That’s the most important thing. I have a good balance between work life and family life. That’s very important to me. My profession is to be an opera singer. But my vocation in life, bestowed on me by God, is to be a mom. That’s so important to me. I’m successful because I’m working, doing what I love, working in great opera houses all over the world. Next year I’m going to be singing in the Bastille in Paris, in Hamburg as Mimì, I’m going back to Covent Garden. Those are wonderful houses to be singing in. And, parallel to that, I’ve got brilliant friends, three wonderful children, and a great husband. That, for me, is the measure of success. Happiness. I’m happy.

If you weren’t an opera singer, what might you have become? Oh. I wanted to be a nurse, because I’m good with people, I think. But, realistically... I don’t know. I’ve loved singing all my life. I never thought I’d have the career I have now. I never wanted it... that’s kind of slapping in the face, what I mean is I didn’t see it coming, it wasn’t my goal. I took my first singing lesson because I wanted to learn how to sing properly, learn the art of singing. When I was in college, I would sing in the chorus. I wanted to be a religion and music teacher. I always wanted music in my life. But I thought I would be a religion in music teacher, because those two things are big in my life. But if you asked me now, if something happened tomorrow, what would I do if my voice went? I love baking, so I’d open a bakery. I don’t like cooking, because when you cook a dinner they don’t appreciate it. They just expect that they’re going to get fed at dinner. But when you bake a cake they think you’re amazing. So if I don’t get the appreciation on stage, I’ll get it for making these scrumptious cakes. In CONVERSATION with Michael Dervan

Failing its way to success The opening night of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has gone down as one of the greatest fiascos in the history of opera. It was not of course the only first-night operatic failure and certainly not the first to get the thumbs down from music critics. It merely added to an honourable list that includes Verdi’s La traviata, Bizet’s Carmen, and Puccini’s own La bohème. Opera failures suck up money, and Madama Butterfly certainly did. The composer, his librettists and his publisher withdrew the work and returned the fee for performing rights to the theatre. You can see why in the magazine Musica e Musicisti’s report on the February 1904 premiere. “Growls, shouts, groans, laughter, giggling, the usual single cries of bis, designed specially to excite the audience still more: these sum up the reception given by the public of the Scala to Giacomo Puccini’s new work. After this pandemonium, throughout which practically nothing could be heard, the public left the theatre as pleased as Punch.” Puccini described the occasion as a lynching. “Those cannibals,” he wrote to a friend, “didn’t listen to one single note – what a terrible orgy of madmen drunk with hate!” And later, to the same friend, “I am still shocked by all that happened – not so much for what they did to my poor Butterfly, but for all the poison that they spat at me as an artist and as a man!” The opera, which was Puccini’s favourite among 22

his own works, was presented again the following May, in a revised form, at the Teatro Grande in Brescia. Here it was a resounding success, and it travelled quickly around Italy and abroad, to Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Alexandria in 1904, Cairo and London in 1905, Budapest, Washington, New York and Paris in 1906. It made its way to Dublin in January 1908, courtesy of the Moody-Manners company, which had given the work in London the previous August. The bass Charles Manners, who ran the company with his wife, the soprano Fanny Moody, was an ancestor of the Irish politician Martin Mansergh. But the story of the opera would not have been entirely new to readers and theatre-goers in early 20th-century Dublin. The opera is based on one-act play by American writer and theatre manager David Belasco. Belasco’s play was written in conjunction with John Luther Long, who had penned a popular magazine story on the subject. That story, Long’s best-known work, is based on true events witnessed by his sister, who worked as a missionary in Japan. Puccini, who didn’t speak English, saw the play in London, on his first visit to England in 1900. Belasco recalled that the composer came backstage after the performance “to embrace me enthusiastically and to beg me to let him use Madame Butterfly as an opera libretto. I agreed at once and told him he could do anything he liked with the play and make any sort of contract

he liked because it is not possible to discuss business arrangements with an impulsive Italian who has tears in his eyes and both his arms round your neck! I never believed he did see Madame Butterfly that first night; he only heard the music he was going to write.”

The play Madame Butterfly came to Dublin from London in February 1901. The publicity included an endorsement from The Daily Telegraph: “The man who misses Madame Butterfly should never be allowed to enter a theatre again for the remainder of his natural life.”

Belasco is remembered now for his association with Puccini. But he was a giant in his day, innovative in his stagings, and very careful of his personal brand image. He wore white, clericalstyle collars which earned him the nickname, the Bishop of Broadway.

And in November 1907 a concert by pupils of the Royal Irish Academy of Music at the Great Hall of the Royal University (today’s National Concert Hall) included an excerpt from the opera, the duet My Love wins the Day sung by Eileen Forbes and Josephine Cox. The Irish Times reported, “It is a very pretty theme, and the singing was marked by very charming expression.” Opera no longer travels as quickly to Ireland, nor is it taken up as quickly by music students as it was more than a hundred years ago.

Belasco regarded one scene in Madame Butterfly as “my most successful effort in appealing to the imagination of those who have sat before my stage”. He used all his skill in lighting for a silent, 14-minute transformation from dusk to dawn, with stars appearing in the sky, birds chirping and sunrise, as Butterfly waits to see Pinkerton again. William Weaver, famous as the translator of Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco and Primo Levi among others, also wrote about opera. And in the context of Belasco’s play, The Girl of the Golden West, which Puccini would set as La fanciulla del West, he wrote, “you are tempted to think that here the setting is everything; Belasco’s stage directions, in which every lighting effect is specified with fanatical detail, make you wonder if, at the time, Broadway audiences did not come out of the theatre at least trying to whistle the scenery.”

Two months later the paper carried an enthusiastic review of the first Irish performance of the whole opera, noting that a “very large number of people” had to be turned away. And the second performance, “again an exceedingly good performance,” was also covered. Under the opening night review was an unrelated news item which blasted out a headline in capitals: “HOW IS IT THAT MANY PEOPLE DO NOT EAT SUFFICIENT VEGETABLES?” Some things never change. Michael Dervan

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RTÉ Concert Orchestra Conductor Laureate Proinnsías Ó Duinn Leader Mia Cooper Introducing orchestral music to new audiences since 1948, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra has built a strong connection with the public that saw it voted the World’s Favourite Orchestra 2015. With its commitment to an eclectic range of programming, the RTÉ CO has performed with artists including Pavarotti, Lang Lang, Lalo Schifrin, Marvin Hamlisch and Cleo Laine. Performances with Irish artists include Declan O’Rourke, Sinéad O’Connor and Imelda May. A recent hugely successful collaboration with RTÉ 2fm and DJ Jenny Greene won the IMRO Outstanding Achievement Award 2018. The RTÉ CO performed in seven Eurovision Song Contests, including the famous Riverdance interval act. Film credits include Stephen Rennicks’ score for the Oscar® and BAFTA-winning Room and Brian Byrne’s Golden Globe-nominated score to Albert Nobbs. Recent recordings include Howard Shore’s A Palace Upon the Ruins, Seán Keane’s Gratitude and Niall Horan’s Flicker. Opera, ballet and choral performances include collaborations with Irish National Opera, English National Ballet and Our Lady’s Choral Society. A series of film screenings with live score has included the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the world première of Vertigo, the European première of An American in Paris and most recently the Irish première of Jaws in Concert.

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BIOGRAPHIES

TIMOTHY REDMOND CONDUCTOR

BEN BARNES DIRECTOR

TODD ROSENTHAL SET DESIGNER

JOAN O’CLERY COSTUME DESIGNER

Timothy Redmond conducts opera and concerts throughout Europe and the US. He is a regular guest conductor with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras and is Professor of Conducting at the Guildhall School. He has conducted over 70 productions in repertoire from Handel to Henze for companies including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Opera Theatre of St Louis and the Mariinsky Theatre. He is a specialist in a new and rediscovered repertoire, and has conducted opera for festivals in Aldeburgh, Bregenz, Los Angeles, Tenerife and Wexford, and last season conducted Irish National Opera’s inaugural production of Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face. As a member of music staff he has also worked extensively at Glyndebourne, Garsington, Strasbourg, De Vlaamse Opera and the Met in New York. He conducts and records with many of the leading British and European orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. This season he conducts the world premiere production of Roberto Rusconi’s Dionysos Rising in Trento and Vienna, Bernstein’s Wonderful Town in Cambridge and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Oxford and London. He conducts concerts with the Britten Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Winston Salem Symphony and he records the orchestral music of Jonathan Dove with the BBC Philharmonic for Orchid Classics and BBC Radio 3.

Ben Barnes is the founding Artistic Director of Opera Theatre Company for whom he directed Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Bizet’s Carmen, Monteverdi’s Orfeo and the company’s 30th anniversary production of Puccini’s La bohème. He is a former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre (2000-5) and Director of the Gaiety Theatre. He is currently consultant Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal, Waterford, where he undertook and completed a major restoration of the oldest continuous performing arts theatre in Ireland. His opera work includes productions of Cavalli’s Ormindo, Mozart’s La finta giardiniera for RIAM at the Beckett Theatre, Verdi’s Rigoletto, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte and Idomeneo, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and the premiere of Eric Sweeney’s The Invader after The Bacchae of Euripides. He will direct Raymond Deane’s new Vagabones with the Crash Ensemble for Opera Collective Ireland next autumn. His theatre work has been seen all over the world, most prominently in London, New York, Sydney, Chicago, Budapest, Toronto, Montreal, Moscow and St Petersberg. He has directed some thirty-five productions for the Abbey Theatre including many new plays and his productions for the Gate Theatre include Irish premieres of Arcadia, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Oleanna. His most recent US work includes Waiting for Godot, The Seafarer and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He has won several Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, and Masque and MECCA Awards for his theatre work in Canada. He is the author of Plays and Controversies detailing his artistic directorship of the national theatre.

Chicago-based set designer Todd Rosenthal’s work includes: on Broadway, August Osage County (Tony Award), The Motherfucker with the Hat (Tony and Outer Critics Circle Nomination), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony Award Best revival), Of Mice and Men, This is Our Youth, Fish in the Dark, and Straight White Men; off Broadway, Red Light Winter (Barrow Street Theater), Domesticated (Lincoln Center), Qualms (Playwrights Horizons), Nice Fish (St Ann’s Warehouse). He was also set designer for six years for the Big Apple Circus. His international work includes: August Osage County (London, Australia); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Theatre Royal, Waterford); Nice Fish, (West End, London); and Downstate (National Theatre, London). His US regional work has been produced by Steppenwolf (33 productions), Goodman (artistic partner), Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, American Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep, Alley Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many others. Museum Exhibitions: Mythbusters: The Explosive Exhibition and The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes. Other awards include 2019 United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) Distinguished Achievement Award, Laurence Olivier, Helen Hayes, Los Angeles Ovation, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, Joseph Jefferson (Chicago), Suzi Bass (Atlanta), and the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and is Professor of Theater at Northwestern University.

Joan O’Clery is a costume designer working in both stage and screen. She is a three-times winner of an Irish Times Irish Theatre Award, including Rough Magic’s 2011 production of Peer Gynt. Her designs for Irish National Opera can be seen in Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s The Second Violinist, co-produced with Landmark Productions. She has originated the costumes for several world premieres by major Irish writers including Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, and Frank McGuinness. Her costumes are regularly seen at the Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre and many stages around Ireland. Highlights of her costuming work include Macbeth at the Globe Theatre and at the RSC, An Enemy of the People, Gate Theatre, DruidMurphy Trilogy of Tom Murphy plays for Druid Theatre Company, She Stoops to Conquer at the Abbey Theatre, and Woyzeck in Winter for Landmark Productions. Her screen work includes the feature films King of the Travellers, Swansong (both IFTA-nominated for best costume design), Out Of Innocence, The Delinquent Season and the forthcoming Rose Plays Julie. She costumed the dramatised sections of the documentary I, Dolores, The Trial of the Century and The Voting Age. She also costumed the RTÉ television series Finding Joy and the installation film Questions for visual artist Gerard Byrne.

JOHN COMISKEY LIGHTING DESIGNER

LIBBY SEWARD MOVEMENT DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER

AARON KELLY VIDEO DESIGNER

John Comiskey has worked extensively in theatre, music, film and television. He has won Best Design at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards (for Copenhagen) and has been nominated several times for Best Lighting Design. His previous operas as lighting designer include Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Puccini’s La bohème (Opera Theatre Company); Eric Sweeney’s The Invader (Theatre Royal, Waterford); and Mozart’s La finta giardiniera (RIAM). He makes his Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly. He curated and designed the first ever Irish participation at the Prague Quadrennial [PQ] exhibition of world theatre design in 2007 and has been selected as a participating artist in PQ19. His film directing credits include the award-winning dance drama Hit and Run; documentaries on German singer Agnes Bernelle and the history of Ireland’s mental asylums; the recent two-part drama The Bailout; the original concert film of Celtic Woman; and the live transmission of the Eurovision Song Contest. He was associate director on Centenary, RTÉ’s commemorative concert for the anniversary of 1916. He has had a lengthy association with Riverdance beginning with the original Eurovision Song Contest performance, followed by two years as production director worldwide of Riverdance – the Show and returning more recently as lighting designer. His music projects have included Antarctica (with David Power and Linda Buckley), and The Frost is All Over and The Well (with Tony MacMahon).

Libby is a dance artist, choreographer, movement director and collaborator. She holds a Masters in Dance and is a Laban graduate. She is the movement tutor on the Gaiety School of Acting’s professional actor-training course. Libby is also a qualified Feldenkrais practitioner. Her movement directing credits include Mozart’s La finta giardiniera and Cavalli’s Ormindo for RIAM; Puccini’s La bohème and Monteverdi’s Orfeo for Opera Theatre Company; Eric Sweeney’s The Invader for Theatre Royal Productions, Waterford; Anáil na Beatha with visual artist Alanna O’Kelly as part of Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger; Whose Feet? GPO performance art installation with Frances Mezzetti; Noël with Eoin Colfer; Stormy Petrel An Post GPO: Witness History Public Art Commissions Award; Closer Encounters and Re-imagining Beckett for Imagine Arts Festival. She makes her Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly. She delights in creative exchanges with artists of all disciplines, and her collaborators include theatre and opera director Ben Barnes, composer Andrew Synnott and mezzo-soprano Karolina Blixt, playwright Jim Nolan, poet Mark Roper, visual artists Ben Hennessy, Alanna O’Kelly, Brian Hand and Una Ryan. As the Artistic Director of Animated State Dance Theatre and Arts Council-appointed Dance Artist in Residence (2010 to 2015) she has created a significant body of original dance theatre productions promoting dance as a unique, vital and accessible art form.

Aaron Kelly is an AV designer and Visual Arts Production Manager based in Dublin. Madama Butterfly is his second video design for Irish National Opera, after last year’s Aida (Bord Gáis Energy Theatre) As a Visual Arts Production Manager he has worked on many exhibitions and live art events: Tremble Tremble for Jesse Jones (Venice Art Biennale 2017, LASALLE Singapore, Project Arts Centre Dublin, Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh & Guggenheim Bilbao, October 2019), Beyond These Rooms for Anu & CoisCéim (Tate Liverpool), Company for Company SJ (Dublin Theatre Festival 2018), Just Be Yourself for Rachel Maclean, Prototypes for Doireann O’Malley, and Keeper for Amanda Dunsmore (all Hugh Lane Gallery). He is also the Technical Manager of the Dublin Fringe Festival.

SINEAD HAYES ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR & CHORUS DIRECTOR Irish conductor Sinead Hayes is equally at home working with choir, orchestra and opera. She is in her fifth season as conductor of Belfast’s Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, with which she has premiered works by Irish and international composers. Last season saw her debuts with Irish National Opera (Mozart’s The Opera Director), Northern Ireland Opera (Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and Greg Caffrey’s The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse) and Opera Collective Ireland (OCI), alongside return appearances with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Concert Orchestra. She also made her Berlin Philharmonie debut, playing Irish fiddle in two of the Berlin Philharmonic’s family concerts and performing alongside members of the orchestra. She has been appointed INO Studio conductor for 2018/2019, and she will be assistant conductor and chorus director for the company’s productions, as well as conducting a number of showcase events with the studio’s artists. This season she also returns to conduct productions with Northern Ireland Opera and Opera Collective Ireland. She studied violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, graduated with a BMus in violin and composition from City University, London, and completed her MMus in orchestral conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, winning the Mortimer Furber conducting prize.

SARAH BAXTER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

AOIFE O’SULLIVAN RÉPÉTITEUR

REBECCA WARREN ASSISTANT RÉPÉTITEUR

Sarah is a freelance director and dramaturg. She is the director member of INO Studio 2018/2019 and was assistant director for INO’s productions of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Verdi’s Aida and will also work on Mozart’s The Magic Flute next May. She is directing INO’s The Deadly World of Opera which plays at five venues as part of MusicTown festival. Her work as director/cocreator includes: with Alice Malseed, it’s getting harder and harder for me (Dublin Fringe 2017/MAC, Belfast 2018) and Jellyfish (Dublin Fringe 2015/ UK tour 2016), and with Niamh Shaw Diary of a Martian Beekeeper (Rory Gallagher Theatre, Cork, 2017/Smock Alley Dublin, 2018). Further director credits include: Personal Space Vol II (Smock Alley), 24HourPlaysDublin 2018 (Dublin Youth Theatre/ Abbey Theatre), Dubliners Women (Irish national tour), Taboo (White Label), The Hellfire Squad and Vehicle (Devious Theatre), and To Space (Niamh Shaw), which toured to Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. As dramaturg she focuses on script development of new writing and worked with Abbey Theatre’s New Work department from 2016-2018. She worked on Jade City by Alice Malseed which recently played at Vaults Festival, London. She trained in LeCoq-based devised and physical theatre at London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA) and furthered her mask studies at Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali in Italy in 2017. She is a member of the artist collective White Label.

Aoife O’Sullivan studied piano with Frank Heneghan and later with John O’Conor. She graduated from TCD with an honours degree in music. In September 1999 she began her studies as a Fulbright scholar at the Curtis Institute of Music with Mikael Eliasen, head of vocal and opera studies, and in 2001 she joined the staff there for her final two years. She was awarded the Geoffrey Parsons Trust Award for accompaniment of singers in 2005. She worked at the National Opera Studio in London from 2006 to 2008 and was on the deputy coach list for the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She has played for masterclasses including those given by Malcolm Martineau, Ann Murray, Thomas Allen, Thomas Hampson, and Anna Moffo. She has appeared at the Wigmore Hall in Lieder recitals including with Ann Murray, Wendy Dawn Thompson and Sinéad Campbell-Wallace. She has worked on the music staff at Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company and Opera Ireland. She coaches the singers in the NI Opera Studio and the INO Studio. Since January 2010 she has been an assistant lecturer at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama working as a vocal coach and répétiteur.

Wexford pianist Rebecca Warren is a graduate of the MA in Classical String Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance where she studied violin performance and piano accompaniment with Mariana Sîrbu, Bruno Giuranna and Ferenc Szűcs. She holds a BA in Music from Waterford Institute of Technology and an Associate Diploma in Piano Performance from the London College of Music. Her teachers have included Marian Ingoldsby, Finghin Collins, Jan Čáp and Yekaterina Lebedeva, and she is undertaking further piano studies in the Royal Irish Academy of Music this year with Dearbhla Brosnan. She is in high demand as a piano accompanist and maintains a busy performance schedule while also running a successful teaching studio. As a violinist she has been a member of and soloist with several orchestras and ensembles with whom she has performed extensively throughout Europe. Her interest in opera was first sparked when she was répétiteur for a production of Marian Ingoldsby’s Lily’s Labyrinth. In 2016 she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Académie d’été Nei Stëmmen, Luxembourg. Since then she has undertaken further operatic and vocal accompaniment studies in Italy, the UK and Greece under the tutelage of vocal coaches Matteo Dalle Fratte, Manolis Papasifakis and Roberto Mingarini and has been répétiteur for several other operatic productions.

CELINE BYRNE SOPRANO MADAMA BUTTERFLY CIO-CIO-SAN

Celine Byrne is a lyric soprano from Kildare. She has a Masters in Music from the Royal Irish Academy of Music where she studied with Veronica Dunne and a music degree from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. In 2007 she won First Prize and Gold Medal at the Maria Callas Grand Prix, Athens. She made her operatic début 2010 as Mimì in Puccini’s La bohéme. She made her Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, debut in Rusalka in 2012 when she took over the title role at very short notice. She was invited back as First Flower Maiden in Wagner’s Parsifal, followed by Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen. Her recent roles include Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Israeli Opera), the title role in Puccini’s Tosca (Mikhailovsky Opera, St Petersburg), Liù in Puccini’s Turandot and Elisabeth in Verdi’s Don Carlo (Oper Leipzig and Deutsche Oper am Rhein). Recent concerts include Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, a recording of Verdi’s Requiem with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and a concert with The Sun Valley Summer Symphony in the America. She makes her Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly, and this season she also performed the role of Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine (Minnesota Opera) and Madama Butterfly (Staatstheater Kassel). After Madama Butterfly with INO she will sing Die Marschallin in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier in Santiago and Marietta/Marie in a concert performance of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt with the RTÉ NSO in Dublin. Celine is an Artistic Partner of Irish National Opera.

JULIAN HUBBARD TENOR

BRETT POLEGATO BARITONE

DOREEN CURRAN MEZZO-SOPRANO

EAMONN MULHALL TENOR

BF PINKERTON Lieutenant in the United States Navy

SHARPLESS United States Consul

SUZUKI Cio-Cio-San’s servant

GORO a marriage broker

Julian Hubbard made his Irish National Opera debut in the title role of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann last September. Other recent and future engagements include Hoffmann (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe), Quint in Britten’s Turn of the Screw (Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels), Priest in Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero (La Monnaie and Oper Stuttgart), Malcolm in Verdi’s Macbeth, and Il messaggero in Verdi’s Aida (La Monnaie), Don José in Bizet’s Carmen and Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera Productions, Dublin), and Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Longborough Festival Opera). Past engagements have included Jimmy Mahoney in Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Opera Theatre Company), Huntsman/ Rusalka (La Monnaie and Scottish Prince in Opera), Walther in Wagner’s Tannhäuser (Longborough Festival Opera), Juan in Henze’s Das Wundertheater (Montepulciano Festival), and Pontio Pilato in Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot (in concert in London), and appearances with English National Opera and Opera Holland Park. His concert repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s The Seasons, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Verdi’s Requiem. He has performed at the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals, the Wigmore Hall and for BBC Radio 3. He also appears on the La Monnaie DVD of Rusalka. He has worked with conductors Richard Bonynge, Adam Fischer, Carlo Rizzi, Alain Altingolu, Paolo Carignani, Stuart Stratford and Anthony Negus, and directors Stefan Herheim, Andrea Breth, Anthony Macdonald, Stewart Laing, and Alfred Kirchner. He trained at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio, London. He currently studies with Janice Chapman.

Canadian-Italian Brett Polegato is one of today’s most sought-after lyric baritones on the international stage. He has earned the highest praise from audiences and critics for his artistic sensibility and his “burnished, well-focused voice” (New York Times). His career has encompassed over fifty operatic roles at the world’s most prestigious venues including La Scala, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, the Teatro Real, Madrid, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Carnegie Hall, New York. He makes his Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly, and other highlights of the 2018-19 season include his role debut as Howie in Terence Blanchard’s Albert Champion (Opéra de Montréal), and his house debut at Wexford Festival Opera as Dr Talbot in the European premiere of William Bolcom’s Dinner at Eight. He also returns to Grange Park Opera as Posa in Verdi’s Don Carlo and makes his recital debut at the Wigmore Hall in London. Recent performances include Kurwenal in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (Opera di Roma, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra National de Bordeaux); the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Grange Park Opera and Canadian Opera Company); Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Palm Beach Opera); Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal (Festival de Lanaudière with Yannick Nézet-Séguin); the world premiere of Jeffrey Ryan’s Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation (Vancouver Symphony Orchestra); Starbuck in Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick and Lieutenant Audebert in Kevin Puts’s Silent Night (Calgary Opera).

Derry-born mezzo-soprano Doreen Curran’s opera roles include the title role in Handel’s Radamisto (Northern Ireland Opera), Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (English National Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Aldeburgh and Buxton), Mercedes in Bizet’s Carmen (Glyndebourne Touring Opera and ATAO Tenerife), Blanche in Prokofiev’s The Gambler (Grange Park Opera), Tamiri in Vivaldi’s Farnace (Salzburg), Zoë in Respighi’s La fiamma, Ernestina in Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro and Clione in Fauré’s Penelopé (Wexford Festival Opera), Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Garsington Opera and Savoy Opera), Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Holland Park Opera), Kate in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (English National Opera), Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (Opera Northern Ireland), Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera Productions, Dublin), Second Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Opera Ireland), Rosina in Rossini’s Barber of Seville (Opera Theatre Company and Armonico Consort), Madame Flora in Menotti’s The Medium, Mother in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Mrs Noye in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, Mary in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (Northern Ireland Opera), and Third Secretary in John Adams’s Nixon in China (Wide Open Opera). She makes her Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly. She has also performed in concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, European Youth Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra and has given recitals in Ireland, England, France, Germany, and the USA.

Wexford tenor Eamonn Mulhall trained at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio in London. He has performed many roles with theatre companies, opera houses and music festivals including The Young Vic, National Theatre (London), Wexford Festival Opera, Slovak National Theatre, English National Opera, ROH2 Covent Garden, Scottish Opera, Prague International Spring Festival and Opera Theatre Company. He has appeared in concert with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. His recordings include Victor Herbert’s Eileen, Jerome Kern’s Roberta, John Metcalf’s Under Milk Wood: An Opera and the recent RTÉ lyric fm release of Irish composer Robert O’Dwyer’s Eithne. This season he sings Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings at the Festivale Musica sull’Acqua at Lake Como, Italy and Hippolyte in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie for Opera Rara in Kraków. Later this year, he will sing Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater with Musici Ireland at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.

RACHEL CROASH SOPRANO

BRENDAN COLLINS BARITONE

KATE PINKERTON 24, 26, 28, 30 March

KATE PINKERTON 4, 5 April

PRINCE YAMADORI

The 24-year old Cork mezzo soprano Niamh O Sullivan has been praised for her “bewitching beautiful dark vibrating timbre” by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. She studied in Dublin with Veronica Dunne and has just completed two years at the International Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. During her time at the Bavarian State Opera, she sang roles in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Jenůfa, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Menotti’s The Consul, Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, From the House of the Dead and Puccini’s Suor Angelica. She has taken part in masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Rudolf Piernay, Edith Wiens, Tara Erraught, Brenda Hurley and Ann Murray. Conductors she has worked with include Kirill Petrenko, Simone Young, Constantinos Carydis, Ingo Metzmacher and she has worked with the directors Christof Loy, Krzysztof Warlikowski and Frank Castorf. In April 2016, she made her Wigmore Hall debut in a concert version of Cousser’s The Applause of Mount Parnassus under the musical direction of Peter Whelan and Ensemble Marysas. In March 2018, she made her Carnegie Hall, New York debut with the Bavarian State Opera in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier under the Kirill Petrenko. This season, she will sing return to the Bavarian State Opera as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and The Prostitute in From the House of the Dead. She will also sing Elgar’s Sea Pictures as part of the Munich Opera Festival in July.

Dublin Soprano Rachel Croash was a finalist in the Ninth Festspiele Immling International Singing Competition and was invited to perform Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Gilda in scenes from Rigoletto in the Festival’s Verdi Gala in 2017. Other Awards include the Wexford Festival Opera Aria Friends Award and the WFO & PwC Emerging Artist Bursary in 2015. She performed at the launch of Irish National Opera in 2018 in Brian Irvine’s Opera - It’s all about like... Her roles include Mademoiselle Silberklang in Mozart’s The Opera Director (Irish National Opera), Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème; Mabel in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance; Valencienne in Lehár’s The Merry Widow (Lyric Opera Productions), Elvira in Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Blackwater Valley Opera Festival), Susanna in WolfFerrari’s Susanna’s Secret (Opera Theatre Company), and Mrs Coyle in the Irish premiere of Britten’s Owen Wingrave (Opera Collective Ireland). Concert Highlights include the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Great Music in Irish Houses festival, Music for Galway, and the Contemporary Music Centre. In 2018 she had the privilege of singing at Áras an Uachtaráin for the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, in a concert to honour the charities of which the President is a patron. She featured as a guest soloist on RTÉ television’s Carols from Dublin Castle with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Stephen Bell. Rachel is a graduate of Maynooth University and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Brendan trained at the Opera Studio of La Monnaie de Munt in Brussels under renowned bassbaritone José van Dam. His roles include the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Conte Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème, Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, Tonio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Alfio in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Père Germont in Verdi’s La traviata, Paolo Albiani in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Fiorello in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Count Gil in Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna. He made his Irish National Opera debut as Crespel in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann in September 2018, has also appeared in productions by Opera Ireland, Cork Operatic Society, Wide Open Opera, Opera Collective Ireland, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English Touring Opera, Scottish Opera, Iford Arts Opera, Longborough Festival Opera, and Northern Ireland Opera. He has performed across Ireland, the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the United States at many of the world’s leading venues including the Royal Albert Hall London (BBC Proms under Andrew Davies), Brooklyn Academy of Music New York (under Mark Elder), Kennedy Center Washington DC, Palais des BeauxArts Brussels, Théâtre de Luxembourg, Stephansdom Vienna, and Kajetanekirche Salzburg. He recently made his Chinese debut in concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre under the baton of Henry Shek.

JOHN MOLLOY BASS

NIAMH O’SULLIVAN MEZZO-SOPRANO

THE BONZE Cio-Cio-San’s uncle John Molloy is one of Ireland’s leading basses and hails from Birr. He studied at the DIT Conservatory of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester and the National Opera Studio London. He made his Irish National Opera debut in April as Antonio in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Roles he has undertaken for Opera Theatre Company include Sparafucile in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Trinity Moses in Weill’s Mahagonny, the title role in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Zuniga in Bizet’s Carmen and he also appeared in Stephen Deazley’s children’s opera BUG OFF!!! Other roles include Alidoro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Scottish Opera), Guccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Royal Opera, London), Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (English National Opera), Arthur in Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse and Figaro in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Nationale Reisopera, Netherlands), Le Commandeur in Thomas’s La cour de Célimène (Wexford Festival Opera), Angelotti in Puccini’s Tosca, Luka in Walton’s The Bear, Banco in Verdi’s Macbeth and Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (OTC and NI Opera), Raimondo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (Opera Holland Park), Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Bonze in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera Productions), Snug in Britten’s A Midsummer Nights Dream (Opera Ireland) and Henry Kissinger in John Adams’s Nixon in China (Wide Open Opera). His concert repertoire includes Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (Shanghai Opera), Verdi’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s St Paul (RTÉ Concert Orchestra), Haydn’s Creation (Continuo Rotterdam), Handel’s Messiah (Rheinische Philharmonie Hallé) and Stravinsky’s Renard (London Sinfonietta).

CORMAC LAWLOR BASS-BARITONE

BRÍD NÍ GHRUAGÁIN MEZZO-SOPRANO

the OFFICIAL REGISTRAR

YAKUSIDÉ

CIO-CIO-SAN’s Mother

Limerick-born bass-baritone Kevin Neville began his training with Olive Cowpar. He completed his BA (Hons) in Music and English Literature at Trinity College Dublin and his MMus with First Class Honours under the tutelage of Emmanuel Lawler at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. He has won numerous competitions at Feis Ceoil Dublin, Sligo Feis Ceoil, Féile Luimní (Limerick), Feis Maitiú (Cork) and Birr Festival of Music & Voice. He is a recipient of the Capuchin Bursary, the Lions Club Award and the Christopher Lynch singing bursary. Last year he completed the NI Opera Studio programme touring three productions in Northern Ireland. He understudied Don Basilio in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville for Wide Open Opera, Benoit in Puccini’s La bohème for Opera Theatre Company and Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for Northern Ireland Opera. He made his Irish National Opera debut as Schlemihl in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann in September 2018. He has performed oratorio works across the country including at the National Concert Hall and Ulster Hall. This June he will appear as The Regent in Balfe’s opera The Sleeping Queen at the Blackwater Valley Opera festival in Lismore and at the Mananan International Festival of Music and the Arts in the Isle of Man.

Cormac is a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music where he studied under Veronica Dunne. He is currently studying under Judith Mok. He was a member of NI Opera’s opera studio and before that completed a term as a Young Associate Artist with Opera Theatre Company in Dublin before going on to work with companies such as NI Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opera Holland Park. He made his Irish National Opera debut as Herrmann in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann in September 2018, and in 2017 he created the role of Farrington in Andrew Synnott’s Dubliners (Opera Theatre Company and Wexford Festival Opera). His other roles include Bonze in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (RTÉ Concert Orchestra), Third Jew in Strauss’s Salome (NI Opera), Colline in Puccini’s La bohème, the King of Egypt in Verdi’s Aida, Kromow in Lehar’s The Merry Widow, An Old Gypsy in Verdi’s Il trovatore and Baron Douphol in Verdi’s La traviata (Lyric Opera Productions). As a student at the RIAM his roles included Superintendent Budd in Britten’s Albert Herring, David in Barber’s A Hand of Bridge, Cadmus in Handel’s Semele and Simone in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. His concert work includes Haydn’s Stabat Mater, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat, Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

Dublin mezzo-soprano Bríd Ní Ghruagáin appeared most recently as Ericlea in Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses (Opera Collective Ireland) in 2018. In 2017 performed in new works by Irish composers – in Elis Czerniak, Sinéad Finegan and Norah Walsh’s Beneath Iseult’s Tower, and Robbie Blake, Anna Murray, David Coonan and Teodor Iuliu Radu’s The 24hr Opera, both for Opera Theatre Company’s Opera Hub. Also in 2017 she took part, at Hillsborough Castle, Co. Down, in the first performance of Neil Martin’s song cycle, Songs After Rain, which was commissioned by the Prince of Wales. She made her UK opera début in 2016 when she created the role of Leah in Neil Martin and Glenn Patterson’s site-specific opera Long Story Short: the Belfast Opera (NI Opera/Belfast Buildings Trust). She makes her Irish National Opera debut in Madama Butterfly. Other roles include Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and La Zia Principessa in his Suor Angelica; Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff ; Mrs Grose in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Mrs Noye in his Noye’s Fludde; Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; and Witch/Mother in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. She is currently working on Tionscadal na nAmhrán Gaeilge 2019, funded by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. She is an alumnus of ENO Opera Works, Bríd studies with countertenor Stephen Wallace and dramatic soprano Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet. She is a graduate of the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama with a Masters in Music (Performance).

ROBERT McALLISTER BASS-BARITONE

KEVIN NEVILLE BASS-BARITONE

the IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER Bass-baritone Robert McAllister achieved a joint honours degree in Business and Law at UCD before he started pursuing his operatic dreams. He studies with Veronica Dunne and répetiteurs Dearbhla Collins and Alison Young at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He is a member of the INO Opera Studio for the 2018/2019 season and made his company debut as Luther in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann in September 2018. His operatic roles at the RIAM include Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Bottom in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Pluto in Monteverdi’s Il ballo delle ingrate. In 2017, he performed the role of the High King of Tír na nÓg in a concert performance of Robert O’Dwyer’s Eithne with Opera Theatre Company, a recording of which has been released on the RTÉ lyric fm label. He is an experienced oratorio performer and has performed Handel’s Messiah, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Liszt’s Coronation Mass, Mozart’s Spatzenmesse, Charpentier’s Messe de minuit pour Noël, Schubert’s Mass in C, Bach’s Coffee Cantata, Duruflé’s Requiem and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. He has performed with the RTÉ NSO and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and earlier this year travelled to Halle, Germany to perform Messiah with the Staatskapelle Halle. He has won many competitive awards and in 2017 was chosen as one of GoldenPlec’s Ones to Watch. He has participated in masterclasses and coaching sessions with Brenda Hurley, Ann Murray, Iain Burnside, Iris dell’Acqua, Roy Laughlin and Anna Devin.

AMY NÍ FHEARRAIGH SOPRANO

MARGARET BRIDGE MEZZO SOPRANO

CIO-CIO-SAN’s COUSIN

CIO-CIO-SAN’s AUNT

Dublin-based soprano and 2018-19 INO Studio member Amy Ní Fhearraigh was chosen as one of GoldenPlec’s Ones to Watch 2018. She graduated from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama with first class honours in the BMus Pedagogy degree and continues her studies under the tutelage of Julian Hubbard. In April 2018 she made her Irish National Opera debut as Barbarina in the company’s critically-acclaimed production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro directed by Patrick Mason. In September 2017 she made her debut with Opera Collective Ireland as Mrs Julian in the Irish premiere of Britten’s Owen Wingrave conducted by Stephen Barlow, for which GoldenPlec noted “her voice and physicality creating a character of delicious fury” and praised her “stunning performance”. Other roles include Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, the title role in Handel’s Susanna and Drusilla in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (DIT Opera Ensemble), Lucinde in Gluck’s Armide (The Yorke Trust) and Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen (Lyric Opera Productions). She made her RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra debut in a live broadcast on Lorcan Murray’s Classic Drive on RTÉ lyric fm. She most recently participated in a Gala Concert at the Cahersiveen Festival of Music and the Arts with the INO Orchestra conducted by Killian Farrell. She has performed in the annual Glasthule Opera Gala under David Brophy, and also for the inaugural Rising Stars Concert in the University Concert Hall, Limerick.

Mezzo-soprano Margaret Bridge trained at the Royal Irish Academy of Music before completing further graduate studies at the New England Conservatory, Boston. Operatic roles include Melanto in Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses (Opera Collective Ireland), Elaine in John Musto’s Later the Same Evening (Opera Memphis), Prince Charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon and the title role in Handel’s Agrippina (New England Conservatory), and Erisbe in Cavalli’s Ormindo (RIAM). She is currently a member of the Northern Ireland Opera Studio, and is also a former member of the young artist programmes at Chautauqua Opera, USA, and Opera Theatre Company, Dublin. As a soloist on the concert stage, she has appeared with the Ulster Orchestra, the Belfast Philharmonic Choir, Back Bay Chorale, Boston, the Goethe-Institut Choir, Dublin, the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, and the University of Dublin Choral Society. She holds a BA in Musicology and Theory from Trinity College Dublin. She was named NI Opera’s Deborah Voigt Voice of 2018 at the Festival of Voice in Glenarm, Co. Antrim.

to Come in 2019 MAy Friday 17 May Mozart The Magic Flute National Opera House Wexford Sunday 19 May Mozart The Magic Flute University Concert Hall Limerick Tuesday 21 May Mozart The Magic Flute Gaiety Theatre Dublin Wednesday 22 May Mozart The Magic Flute Gaiety Theatre Dublin Thursday 23 May Mozart The Magic Flute Gaiety Theatre Dublin Friday 24 May Mozart The Magic Flute Gaiety Theatre Dublin Saturday 25 May Mozart The Magic Flute Gaiety Theatre Dublin

June Thursday 27 June Rigaki & Okorie This Hostel Life Christ Church Cathedral Dublin Saturday 29 June Rigaki & Okorie This Hostel Life Christ Church Cathedral Dublin

OCTOBER Saturday 12 October Griselda Town Hall Theatre Galway Tuesday 15 October Griselda An Grianán Letterkenny Thursday 17 October Griselda Hawk’s Well Theatre Sligo Saturday 19 October Griselda Solstice Arts Centre Navan Tuesday 22 October Griselda Watergate Theatre Kilkenny Thursday 24 October Griselda Lime Tree Theatre Limerick Saturday 26 October Griselda Pavilion Theatre Dún Laoghaire Sunday 27 October Griselda Pavilion Theatre Dún Laoghaire

Booking and information on irishnationalopera.ie 40

03 41

INO Friends & Patrons 2019 INO PATRONS Anonymous Catherine & William Earley Silvia & Jay Krehbiel Dr J R O’Donnell

Show us your passion for opera Opera has a unique power to move and inspire. Irish National Opera’s mission is to give everyone in Ireland the opportunity to experience this at first hand. Ireland’s national opera company presents the best of opera at affordable prices in towns and cities around Ireland and flies the flag for Irish talent through appearances overseas. We select and showcase the cream of Irish opera talent from a growing pool of nationally and internationally acclaimed singers, composers, directors, designers and choreographers. And we team them up with leading colleagues from all over the world. We presented eight productions across 14 venues at home and abroad in 2018, our inaugural year. We reached thousands of people through our live performance and a multiple of that number through radio broadcasts, web streaming, CDs and downloads. But we want to do more. Your support is vital to our mission of bringing the full spectrum of operatic experience to people of all ages right across the country. Our Friends and Patrons receive invitations to exclusive behind-the-scenes events, including backstage tours, masterclasses with world-renowned singers, INO Studio performances and artists’ receptions. Your support will ensure that Irish opera can thrive for generations to come.

JOIN US

Contact Sarah Freeman Head of Corporate Communications & Development E: sarah.freeman@irishnationalopera.ie T: 01–679 4962

INO CHAMPIONS Jennifer Caldwell Anne Fogarty Maire & Maurice Foley Howard Gatiss Genesis M Hely Hutchinson Timothy King & Mary Canning Stella Litchfield Stephen Loughman Tony & Joan Manning R. John McBratney Jim McKiernan Sara Moorhead Patricia O’Hara Dermot & Sue Scott Gaby Smyth & Company INO BENEFACTORS Maureen de Forge Roy & Aisling Foster Margaret McAlpine Joseph Musgrave Ann Nolan & Paul Burns Catherine Santoro INO SUPPORTERS Noel Drumgoole Hugh & Mary Geoghegan Annmaree O’Keeffe & Chris Greene Jean Moorhead F.X. & Pat O’Brien James Pike INO FRIENDS Anonymous Big Image Systems Cróine Magan Viola O’Connor Líosa O’Sullivan Hilary Pyle Sarah Rogers Breda Whelan Judy Woodworth

INO studio update may bank holIday wEEkEnd 2019 Highlights

Crash EnsEmblE

Members of this world-class ensemble with their astonishing music-making.

IrIsh natIonal opEra

Join this year’s INO Studio Artists for an evening of opera by some of Ireland’s most promising talent.

lunCh & musIC @ thE ChEstnut With Kevin Neville baritone & Niall Kinsella pianist.

musIC In bIrr CastlE

Acclaimed Verdi baritone Bruno Caproni and pianist Julian Evans in recital.

trEnCh award Gala ConCErt

Six aspiring young professional musicians perform a programme of solo instrument and song. The valuable Trench Award 2019 and other bursaries, will be presented.

A weekend of classical music throughout the beautiful Georgian town of Birr, in Co. Offaly with Masterclasses, Lunchtime Concerts, Birr Young Voices Choral Project & more.

Friday 3 – Monday 6 May

www.birrtheatre.com Ph: 057 9122911 44

INO Studio, launched last September, was created to deliver on a core aspect of Irish National Opera’s mission. The project was set up to develop and nurture the very best operatic talent we can find in Ireland. Since the launch, INO has taken a group of eight artists right into the heart of the company for a year-long programme of custom-tailored development – four singers (sopranos Rachel Croash and Amy Ní Fhearraigh, tenor Andrew Gavin, and bass-baritone Robert McAllister), a répétiteur (Rebecca Warren), a conductor (Sinead Hayes), a director (Sarah Baxter), and a composer (Evangelia Rigaki). INO Studio members have participated in a series of masterclasses with internationally acclaimed artists including director Sigrid Herzog, and singers Paula Murrihy and Ann Murray. Anyone who wants to sample one of these behind-the-scenes sessions can attend INO Studio’s upcoming public masterclass led by Tara Erraught. This is presented in partnership with the National Concert Hall in the NCH Studio on the afternoon of Saturday 27 April. Tickets for observers are just €5. Real-life professional experience is a key element of the INO Studio’s work. Sinead Hayes, Sarah Baxter and Rebecca Warren have all been engaged in an assistant capacity on INO productions. Studio singers are also involved in several productions, and some of them are onstage in tonight’s Madama Butterfly. Other public events also feature in INO Studio’s schedule. June will bring the premiere of Evangelia Rigaki’s This Hostel Life, a new work of immersive theatre, in the crypt of Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral (Thursday 27 and Friday 28 June). And The Deadly World of Opera, which will be seen in smaller venues around Dublin as part of the MusicTown festival in April, features six studio members – our four singers, répétiteur and director. See irishnationalopera.ie or musictown.ie It is our goal for INO Studio to nurture the great operatic artists of the future and to share our exciting journey with you over the coming years. Each year the studio will be open to a fresh intake of singers and opera creatives. Studio membership is is open to Irish artists or full-time Irish based artists and there is no age limit. For more information visit irishnationalopera.ie To support the studio, please contact James Bingham on 01–679 4962, 089–605 6983, james@irishnationalopera.ie. INO Studio is supported by a generous partnership with the Goethe-Institut. 45

Sorcha Carroll Marketing Manager Alice Dunne Production & Studio Coordinator Diego Fasciati Executive Director Sarah Freeman Head of Corporate Communications & Development

Board of Directors Gaby Smyth (Chair) Jennifer Caldwell Tara Erraught Gary Joyce Stella Litchfield Sara Moorhead Joseph Murphy Ann Nolan Yvonne Shields Michael Wall

Sarah Halpin Digital Communications Manager Cate Kelliher Business & Finance Manager Muireann Ní Dhubhghaill Artistic Administrator Gavin O’Sullivan Head of Production Fergus Sheil Artistic Director

Vivaldi

GRISELDA With The Irish Baroque Orchestra

69 Dame Street Dublin 2 | Ireland T: 01–679 4962 E: info@irishnationalopera.ie irishnationalopera.ie

Touring nationwide 12 – 27 October

@irishnationalopera @irishnatopera @irishnationalopera Company Reg No.: 601853

Town Hall Theatre Galway An Grianán Letterkenny Hawk’s Well Theatre Sligo Solstice Arts Centre Navan Watergate Theatre Kilkenny Lime Tree Theatre Limerick Pavilion Theatre Dún Laoghaire irishnationalopera.ie

SH IRI

PREMIERE

INO team

James Bingham Studio & Outreach Producer

irishnationalopera.ie