22 OCTOBER TO 3 NOVEMBER, 2019
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68TH WEXFORD FESTIVAL OPERA When Compton Mackenzie, the renowned novelist and founder of Gramophone magazine, suggested to Tom Walsh that he stage an opera in Wexford, few could have imagined where the idea would lead. But since the first ‘Festival of Music and the Arts’ took place in October 1951, Wexford Festival Opera has grown into one of the world’s leading opera festivals. In 2017 Wexford Festival Opera won Best Opera Festival in the World at the 2017 International Opera Awards. Right from the beginning, the Festival made a name for itself by introducing audiences to unjustly neglected works, many of which have since found a place in the canon. Over the years the Festival has established an international reputation both for attracting and for making major stars. The Festival introduced Western audiences to baritone Sergei Leiferkus back in 1983, while tenors Juan Diego Floréz and Joseph Calleja and sopranos Mirella Freni, Elizabeth Connell, Angela Meade and mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona all made early appearances here. The 68th Festival has a distinctively Irish flavour to the programme featuring not just one, but two Irish composers on the stage of the National Opera House including the worldpremier of a newly-commissioned opera by Irish composer Andrew Synnott, La cucina, and a concert version of The Veiled Prophet by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford, to be conducted by David Brophy, presented in association with Heritage Music Productions. La cucina will be presented as a companion piece to one of Gioachino Rossini’s lesser known operas Adina. This year’s programme will also feature the first Baroque opera to be performed at Wexford Festival Opera in over 30 years, Dorilla in Tempe by Antonio Vivaldi. The Festival will continue its long association with Massenet, presenting its 10th opera production by the French composer, Don Quichotte. The daytime ShortWork productions will feature Le Docteur Miracle (Doctor Miracle) by Georges Bizet, Cendrillon (Cinderella) by Pauline Viardot and L’inganno felice (The Happy Deception) by Gioachino Rossini. Audiences can also look forward to an exclusive array of concerts and recitals and more over 13 days, 22 October to 3 November, 2019.
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MAIN STAGE / EVENING OPERAS O’Reilly Theatre, National Opera House
A Village Romeo and Juliet, 2012 PHOTO: CLIVE BARDA/ARENAPAL
Dress Code One of the many things that makes the Wexford Festival Opera experience so unique is that attendees dress in black tie, a tradition that dates back from the Festival’s beginning in 1951. Therefore evening dress/black tie is the recommended dress code for the main evening operas.
“ …one of Europe’s key international music events.” –Wall Street Journal
Duration Main stage operas vary in length from 2.5 to 3.5 hours, with at least one 30-minute intermission.
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DON QUICHOTTE Jules Massenet (1842–1912) Comédie-héroïque in five acts Libretto by Henri Cain after Jacques Le Lorrain’s verse play Le chevalier de la longue figure (1904, after Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote) Sung in French with English surtitles Timothy Myers | Conductor Rodula Gaitanou | Director takis | Set & Costume Designer Simon Corder | Lighting Designer Though Jules Massenet had a few more operas left in him, Don Quichotte feels in many ways like his operatic farewell. Two-and-a-half years after its premier the composer died aged 70. Massenet’s career had spanned nearly half a century and all his experience of writing for the stage is summed up in this near-masterpiece. Massenet’s own feelings seem to have been poured into the work, which helps to explain the richly sentimental portrait of Cervantes’s semi-hero. Sancho Panza is also drawn in the tradition of comic opera, but it is the portrayal of Dulcinée that is perhaps most telling of all. A slightly cynical gold-digger, albeit one with a heart, Dulcinée certainly represents the sort of femmes the composer was used to encountering in the cafés of Paris. The role was written for the young mezzo-soprano Lucy Arbell, who had been leading the infatuated Massenet (some 40 years older than she) in a bit of a dance. Arbell created several roles in late Massenet operas, and the part of Dulcinée, in particular, exemplifies the late-period entry of the mezzosoprano voice into the composer’s creative consciousness. O’REILLY THEATRE | NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE TICKETS €20 – €150 Tuesday 22 October | 8 p.m. Friday 25 October | 8 p.m.
Tuesday 29 October | 8 p.m. Friday 1 November | 8 p.m.
22ND OCTOBER PERFORMANCE GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY
25TH OCTOBER PERFORMANCE GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY
Brenda and Lochlann Quinn PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE
Don Quichotte Consortium | 5 |
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DORILLA IN TEMPE Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) Melodramma eroico pastorale in three acts Libretto by Antonio Maria Lucchini Sung in Italian with English surtitles First performance 9 November 1726, Teatro Sant’Angelo, Venice Andrea Marchiol | Conductor Fabio Ceresa | Director Massimo Checchetto | Set Designer Giuseppe Palella | Costume Designer Simon Corder | Lighting Designer Dorilla in Tempe was one of Vivaldi’s own favourite compositions. Dorilla was certainly the first of his operas to feature the young Mantua-born mezzo-soprano Anna Girò, and she would go on to enjoy a close professional – and, some say, personal – relationship with the composer. His ‘indispensable prima donna’ performed in many of his operas, retiring from the stage a few years after his death. Vivaldi’s affection for Dorilla might also be explained by its own, sheer success. He revisited and revised it a number of times and the work returned to Venice for the carnival season of 1734, by now in the form of a pasticcio, as was the practise at the time, incorporating music by Giacomelli, Hasse and Leo. The only surviving score dates from this revival. The score also shows Vivaldi quoting himself, notably in the opening chorus, which reworks part of ‘Spring’ from his celebrated Four Seasons. The opera tells of the obstacles to the blissful union of Dorilla (a princess) and Elmiro (a shepherd), whose rival Nomio turns out to be the god Apollo in disguise. O’REILLY THEATRE | NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE TICKETS €20 – €150 Wednesday 23 October | 8 p.m. Saturday 26 October | 8 p.m.
Wednesday 30 October | 8 p.m. Saturday 2 November | 8 p.m.
23RD OCTOBER PERFORMANCE GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY
Stephen Vernon PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE
Dorilla in Tempe Consortium | 7 |
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LA CUCINA
ADINA
Andrew Synnott (1970–)
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
Divertissement in one act
Farsa in one act
Libretto by Rosetta Cucchi
Libretto by Marchese Gherardo BevilacquaAldobrandini
World premiere 24 October 2019 Wexford Festival Opera
First performance 22 June 1826, Teatro de S Carlos, Lisbon A co-production with Rossini Opera Festival
Sung in Italian with English surtitles Michele Spotti | Conductor Rosetta Cucchi | Director Tiziano Santi | Set Designer Claudia Pernigotti | Costume Designer Simon Corder | Lighting Designer Intriguingly, Adina is not an early work of Rossini, but one composed (1818) in the aftermath of Rossini’s great creative flush of 1816–17, which produced masterpieces including Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, Otello and La gazza ladra. Rossini never heard the work himself, and after a performance in 1828 in Rio de Janeiro, it disappeared from view until the 1960s. Though subtitled Il califfo di Bagdad, the score makes little attempt at Middle-Eastern local colour. The plot is a variation on the then-popular escape-from-the-harem theme, though the heroine on this occasion feels more than usual sympathy for her captor. Adina will be prefaced with the world premiere of La cucina (‘The Kitchen’). The Dublin-based composer Andrew Synnott is no stranger to the operatic stage: his first opera, Breakdown, was followed by a pair of short operas – Counterparts and The Boarding House, based on James Joyce’s Dubliners and premiered two years ago at Wexford. O’REILLY THEATRE | NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE TICKETS €20 – €150 Thursday 24 October | 8 p.m. Sunday 27 October | 3 p.m.
Thursday 31 October | 8 p.m. Sunday 3 November | 5 p.m.
27TH OCTOBER PERFORMANCE GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY
Terry and Marjorie Neill | 9 |
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THE VEILED PROPHET Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) Grand opera in five acts Libretto by W. Barclay Squire after Moore Sung in English with English surtitles First performance 2 June 1881, Hoftheater, Hannover David Brophy | Conductor Presented by Heritage Music Productions in association with Wexford Festival Opera Very few professional performances have been given of Charles Villiers Stanford’s operas in the last century. Mostly remembered these days for his late-Victorian church music, the Anglo-Irish composer enjoyed a full and varied career. Indeed, there is much more to the Dublin-born Stanford (1852–1924) than most modern listeners realise, and in particular, his symphonies, concertos and Irish Rhapsodies are a joy to discover. More surprisingly, Stanford was also a prolific opera composer, much more interested in the lyric stage than most of his contemporaries in Britain (his career was largely divided between Cambridge and London). But recognising the hopelessness of pursuing an operatic career at home, he turned to Germany – he had studied with Reinecke in Leipzig in the 1870s – and it was in Hanover that the first of his ten operas, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, was premiered in 1881. There is another Irish connection here: the opera is based on Thomas Moore’s popular romance Lalla Rookh. Among those who made musical settings before Stanford were Spontini, Félicien David, Anton Rubinstein and – most famous of all – Schumann, in what became his Das Paradies und die Peri. Cosmopolitan in its pre-Wagnerian manner, the work is attractive, despite sometimes coming under suspicion for its shades of Meyerbeer. But it was well received in its day, with the Musical Times of 1 March 1881 saying of Stanford, ‘He has come before the world in a new light, as the composer of a grand opera, a work of greater importance than has hitherto appeared from his pen.’ O’REILLY THEATRE | NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE TICKETS €50 – €80 Monday 28 October | 5 p.m.
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SHORTWORK OPERAS Clayton Whites Hotel Duration: 60–90 minutes
“ There is a kind of house party atmosphere which spreads from the theatre to the hotels; Wexford is unlike any other festival, the enthusiasm is unique. It is the total experience that matters.” –The New York Times
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Trouble in Tahiti, ShortWork, 2011 PHOTO: PAULA MALONE CARTY
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LE DOCTEUR MIRACLE Georges Bizet (1838–1875) Opérette in one act Libretto by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy Sung in French with English surtitles First performance 9 April 1857, Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris Georges Bizet has long been a victim of his own success. Posthumous success, that is, because his greatest opera, Carmen, was famously a flop at its premiere just three months before his death in 1875. But there is much more to him operatically. In addition to his popular Les Pêcheurs de perles, there are six other operas. Bizet was just 18 when he composed Le Docteur Miracle, and if it unsurprisingly lacks musical originality it is nevertheless a little gem, almost resembling a foreshortened amalgam of Rossini’s Barbiere and Donizetti’s Elisir. Indeed, at every turn, Le Docteur Miracle shows how remarkably well the young composer had already mastered comic style. Bizet was nearing the end of his student career – soon to be capped by winning the Prix de Rome – when he entered a comic-opera competition organised by Offenbach in 1856. A distinguished jury whittled down the 78 entrants to six finalists, each of whom was given the same libretto (by Leon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Richard Brinsley Sheridan farce St Patrick’s Day), and eventually, Bizet and Charles Lecocq were declared joint winners of the first prize. Successful performances followed at Offenbach’s theatre, the BouffesParisiens, before Le Docteur Miracle disappeared for almost a century. Where Le Docteur Miracle is surely unique is in boasting an amusing ‘omelette quartet’, in which Bizet enjoys playing with the rhythms of the words ‘Voici l’omelette’ and which features mock-heroic invocations to a poorly cooked omelette that both tastes and smells horrible. In best comic tradition, the ‘servant’ – actually the disguised suitor of the mayor’s daughter – who made the omelette is sent off, and gets his revenge by announcing that the omelette was poisoned and that the only person with a cure is a certain…Dr Miracle. CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL | TICKETS €30 Wednesday 23 October | 3.30 p.m. Saturday 26 October | 3.30 p.m. Thursday 31 October | 3.30 p.m.
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FESTIVAL CALENDAR Tuesday 22 October Opening Ceremony
8 p.m.
Don Quichotte
Wednesday 23 October 1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
2.15 p.m.
Friends’ Lunch
3.30 p.m.
Le Docteur Miracle
Dorilla in Tempe
8 p.m.
Thursday 24 October
10 a.m.
Friends’ Welcome Reception
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
Cendrillon
La cucina / Adina
8 p.m.
Friday 25 October 9.30 a.m.
Opera House Tour
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
L’inganno felice
Don Quichotte
8 p.m.
Post Opera Friends’ Party
Saturday 26 October 1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
Le Docteur Miracle
Dorilla in Tempe
8 p.m.
Sunday 27 October
3 p.m.
8.30 p.m.
La cucina / Adina Gala Concert
Monday 28 October 1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
2.15 p.m.
Friends’ Lunch
The Veiled Prophet
5 p.m.
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Tuesday 29 October 9.30 a.m.
Opera House Tour
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
Cendrillon
Don Quichotte
8 p.m.
Wednesday 30 October 1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
L’inganno felice
5.15 p.m.
Friends’ Buffet
Dorilla in Tempe
8 p.m.
Thursday 31 October 9.30 a.m.
Opera House Tour
Friends’ Welcome Reception
10 a.m.
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
Le Docteur Miracle
La cucina / Adina
8 p.m.
Friday 1 November
11 a.m.
Dr Tom Walsh Lecture
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
Cendrillon
Don Quichotte
8 p.m.
Post Opera Friends’ Party
Saturday 2 November 9.30 a.m.
Opera House Tour
1.05 p.m.
Lunchtime Recital
3.30 p.m.
L’inganno felice
Dorilla in Tempe
8 p.m.
Sunday 3 November
5 p.m.
La cucina / Adina
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CENDRILLON Pauline Viardot (1821–1910) Opéra comique in three acts Libretto by the composer based on the story of Cendrillon Sung in French with English surtitles First performance 13 April 1904, Salon of Mademoiselle de Aogueiras From Rossini’s La Cenerentola to Massenet’s Cendrillon, the repertoire is rich in Cinderella operas. Among the most interesting besides those two great works is the Cendrillon of Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), a miniature operetta written in old age and requiring only a handful of voices and piano. As well as being an elegant retelling of Pérrault’s classic fairy tale, it is – thanks to Viardot’s fascinating life story – a work that pulls together many threads of 19th-century Parisian musical life. Hardly anyone was better connected than Viardot, in the most positive sense of the word. Her father was Manuel Garcia, the Spanish tenor for whom Rossini had composed the role of Almaviva in his Il barbiere di Siviglia. Her sister was the celebrated soprano Maria Malibran. In her own right, the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot became famous for her performances of Gluck, premiered Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, created the role of Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète and was the dedicatee of Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila. Viardot was a fine pianist too, having studied with Liszt as a child, and she was close friends with George Sand and Chopin, delighting the Polish composer when she arranged some of his mazurkas as songs. She sang at Chopin’s funeral in 1849, in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem – just as she had nine years earlier at Napoleon’s funeral. Viardot was also the muse of the great Russian writer Turgenev, who produced several librettos for her operettas, some of which enjoyed great success. It’s thought unlikely that any of Turgenev’s words found their way into Cendrillon, as he died some 20 years before its premiere, though it is possible that this operetta was composed sometime before it was first performed in 1904. Viardot had of course been a celebrated interpreter of Rossini’s Cenerentola, but her version of the story possesses its own light, distinctive touch. CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL | TICKETS €30 Thursday 24 October | 3.30 p.m. Tuesday 29 October | 3.30 p.m. Friday 1 November | 3.30 p.m.
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L’INGANNO FELICE Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Opera in one act Libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa. Sung in Italian with English surtitles First performance 8 January 1812, Teatro San Moisè, Venice Though labelled as a farsa by its composer, L’inganno felice stands out among Rossini’s early operas for depths that point towards the semiseria works that most enshrine his genius, even at one point anticipating the great Act 2 trio of Le Comte Ory. Certainly, it is the most rewarding of Rossini’s early works, and its popularity with the public at its premiere in 1812 is easy to understand; it became the first of his operas to cross the Alps and be heard in Austria and Germany. (When Metternich made Rossini the ‘official composer’ of the 1822 Congress of Verona, this was one of the works he requested.) Rossini was only 19 at the time of its premiere, yet it was his fourth opera (and the third to be heard). It took him back to Venice’s Teatro San Moisè, where his La cambiale di matrimonio had already been premiered and it won him a contract for further operas there – all in all, five of his first nine operas had their premieres at the San Moisè, which specialised in single-act, comic works. The libretto was a reworking of one already set by Giovanni Paisiello; a few years later Rossini’s version of Il barbiere di Siviglia would eclipse Paisiello’s once‑celebrated opera of that name. L’inganno felice (‘The Fortunate Deception’) belongs to the comic-serious genre involving the rescue of a wronged, innocent heroine. Here, in a story set in a seaside mining community, that heroine is Isabella and her rescuer and adopted uncle is Tarabotto. The chaste sadness of her music and the buffo bustle of his are set in effective contrast, supplying tension until the mysterious nocturnal atmosphere of the finale is joyously resolved. CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL | TICKETS €30 Friday 25 October | 3.30 p.m. Wednesday 30 October | 3.30 p.m. Saturday 2 November | 3.30 p.m.
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CONCERTS, LECTURES AND RECITALS O’Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, St Iberius Church, Clayton Whites Hotel
Gala Concert, 2017 PHOTO: PAULA MALONE CARTY
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“ This remains one of the world’s most remarkable festivals – genuinely festive on stage and off, and placed in a setting that never goes stale no matter how often one visits it.” —The Financial Times | 23 |
DR TOM WALSH LECTURE Artistic Director Designate Rosetta Cucchi The 2019 Lecture will be presented by two women closely connected to the Festival’s past, present, and future. Elaine Padmore (artistic director 1982–1994) will engage in conversation with Artistic Director Designate Rosetta Cucchi, who will become the 8th artistic director of Wexford Festival Opera in 2020. From 2001 to 2015 Rosetta was appointed Artistic Director of Lugo Opera Festival and also began an intense collaboration with Teatro Comunale di Bologna. From 2005 to 2018 she served as Artistic Director of the Arturo Toscanini Foundation (FAT) in Parma where, among her many accomplishments, she brought the Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic Orchestra on tour throughout Italy, China, Germany and Bulgaria. Her association with Wexford Festival Opera began in 1995 where she initially acted as a répétiteur. Her WFO directorial debut came in 2004 with Braunfels’ Prinzessin Brambila. She has since directed three other operas at Wexford, most recently Alfano’s Risurrezione in 2017 and will direct Adina by Rossini (a co-production with the Rossini Opera Festival) and La cucina by Andrew Synnott as part of this year’s Festival.
We are grateful for the ongoing sponsorship of the Lecture by Victoria Walsh Hamer. CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL | TICKETS €10 Friday 1 November | 11 a.m.
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LUNCHTIME RECITALS The very popular Lunchtime Recitals provide an insight into the artistic personality of some of the principal singers of the Festival and are a way to ‘meet’ them in an informal setting. In the beautiful and acoustically excellent eighteenth-century church of St Iberius in the centre of Wexford in Ireland’s Ancient East, audiences appreciate the musical versatility of solo singers who perform a wide variety of music from across the repertoire, including operatic arias, lieder, oratorio, concert and popular songs. One of the delights of attending a Lunchtime Recital is that the programme is not advertised beforehand, so everyone shares the same degree of anticipation and expectation. Unsurprisingly, the Lunchtime Recitals sell out very quickly. The artists and their performance dates will be announced at the beginning of the Festival.
ST IBERIUS CHURCH | TICKETS €15 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31 October | 1.05 p.m. 1, 2 November | 1.05 p.m.
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PHOTO: PAULA MALONE CARTY
GALA CONCERT The Gala Concert is one of the highlights of Wexford Festival Opera and features a collection of favourite party pieces from members of the Festival company. All performers generously donate their time and talent for the Gala Concert, and all proceeds go toward supporting Wexford Festival Opera. Early booking is advised. O’REILLY THEATRE | NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE TICKETS €50 – €80 Sunday 27 October | 8.30 p.m.
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La fanciulla del West, ShortWork, 2018 PHOTO: PAULA MALONE CARTY
DAYTIME PACKAGE Discover the world of opera with our Daytime Events Package. This is the perfect introduction to Wexford Festival Opera and can be comfortably enjoyed over a few hours in Wexford without staying overnight. It has proved particularly attractive to groups of people as a day out for their organisation. The package includes a Lunchtime Recital in St Iberius Church and a ShortWork opera in the afternoon in Clayton Whites Hotel – as well as lunch in Clayton Whites Hotel. For groups of fifteen or more, the group organiser receives a complimentary €65 Daytime Events Package ticket. All bookings (group and individual) must be made through the Box Office: +353 53 912 2144 1.05 p.m. Lunchtime Recital at St Iberius Church, given by one of the principal artists of the Festival. 2.15 p.m. Lunch at Clayton Whites Hotel 3.30 p.m. ShortWork opera in Clayton Whites Hotel – a smallstage opera production, duration approx. 60–90 minutes (see Festival Calendar on page 24) ST IBERIUS CHURCH, CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL TICKETS €65 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31 October 1, 2 November
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MIDWEEK ACCOMMODATION PACKAGES
4-STAR FERRYCARRIG HOTEL MIDWEEK OPERA PACKAGE Enjoy one night B&B in the 4-star Ferrycarrig Hotel located on the River Slaney, a 3 course dinner in the Reed Restaurant and and tickets to a midweek mainstage Wexford Festival Opera production in the National Opera House. Transfers to the National Opera House included. From €215 pps based on two people sharing. Subject to availability. Available midweek only. Festival Rate: 22 October – 3 November 2019 From €59.50 pps per night midweek From €79.50 pps per night weekend To book please call Ferrycarrig Hotel reservations on +353 53 915 3623 4-STAR CLAYTON WHITES HOTEL MIDWEEK FESTIVAL FEAST PACKAGE Enjoy one night B&B in the 4-star Clayton Whites Hotel (2-minute walk to the National Opera House), tickets to a midweek mainstage Wexford Festival Opera production in the National Opera House and a glass of prosecco on arrival at the hotel. From €207.50 pps. Subject to availability. Available midweek only. Festival Rate: 22 October – 3 November 2019 From €107.50 pps B&B per night midweek From €119.50 pps B&B per night weekend To book please call Clayton Whites Hotel reservations on +353 53 912 2311
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4-STAR TALBOT HOTEL WEXFORD MIDWEEK FESTIVAL OPERA STAY Enjoy one night B&B in the 4-star Talbot Hotel Wexford (10-minute walk to the National Opera House), tickets to a midweek mainstage Wexford Festival Opera production in the National Opera House and a glass of prosecco on arrival at the hotel. From €219 pps based on two people sharing. Subject to availability. Available midweek only. Festival Rate: 22 October – 3 November 2019 From €109.50 pps B&B per night midweek To book please call Talbot Hotel reservations on +353 53 912 2566 4-STAR KELLY’S RESORT HOTEL MIDWEEK OPERA INDULGENCE PACKAGE Enjoy one night B&B in the 4-star Kelly’s Resort Hotel located 10 km from the National Opera House, tickets to a midweek mainstage Wexford Festival Opera production in the National Opera House and a glass of prosecco on arrival at the hotel. From €205 pps based on two people sharing. Subject to availability. Available midweek only. Festival Rate: 22 October – 3 November 2019 From €95 pps B&B per night midweek To book please call Kelly’s Resort Hotel reservations on +353 53 913 2114 Midweek Packages are based on €100 tickets in the stalls and Upper Circle. Please advise the hotel you are purchasing the package from if you would like to request a certain seat or upgrade your seat. Alternatively you can contact boxoffice@wexfordopera.com
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La Cour de Célimène, 2011 PHOTO: CLIVE BARDA/ARENAPAL
Guglielmo Ratcliff, 2015 PHOTO: CLIVE BARDA/ARENAPAL
BECOME A FRIEND OF WEXFORD FESTIVAL OPERA Support from our Friends forms the cornerstone of what makes Wexford Festival Opera truly great. Founded in 1951 by a group of opera admirers who gave their time, talents and what limited funds they had. The Festival has evolved to be a leader in national and international opera; lauded and praised by audiences and critics worldwide. Our Friends provide support because they recognise the cultural and artistic contribution that the Festival makes to Ireland and the international opera community. Your support enabled Wexford win the highly coveted Best Festival award at the International Opera Awards 2017. FRIENDS’ BENEFITS: OUR WAY OF SAYING THANK YOU As a special thank you, we have designed a range of exclusive benefits to enhance your experience during the Festival and throughout the year: • Priority booking for the best seats • Exclusive recitals – featuring upcoming Festival artists – in London and Dublin • Access to an exclusive international opera tour • In Conversation lectures in London and Dublin • Complimentary tickets to Friends’ Parties, Lunches, and Buffet during the Festival • Exclusive access – during the Festival – to: – The Friends’ Lounge in the National Opera House – Welcome Receptions held during the Festival • A complimentary copy of the Official Programme Book, Loyalty Card, Newsletter, CD, and lapel pin • Regular news updates FRIENDS’ LEVELS AND PRICING: Prelude: €80 Ensemble Plus: €300 Bravura: €2,000
Chorus: €125 Aria: €500
Ensemble: €185 Cabaletta: €1,000
For more information contact Nuala Sheedy directly on +353 53 916 3525 or email nuala@wexfordopera.com
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The story of Rubens and robberies in one of Ireland’s great houses.
Russborough House, Co. Wicklow.
From the beautiful galleries of Russborough House, to the tragic past of Wicklow Gaol, to the follies of Belvedere House and Gardens, you’ll find hundreds of stories in Ireland’s Ancient East.
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BOOK TICKETS online: Wexfordopera.com by phone:
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