Tuesday, 22 April 2014

What Wexford does best.





On the night of Monday April 7th, Wexford Festival Opera was the proud winner of the award for Best Re-discovered Work at the 2nd annual Opera Awards. The award was for the 2013 festival production of Cristina regina di Svezia by Foroni. Pictured we see Artistic Director David Agler receiving the award from Opera Awards founder Harry Hyman. Accepting the Award on the night, David commented, “It is a distinct honour that Wexford Festival Opera has been recognised for what it is has done faithfully for 63 years in presenting rediscovered operas to the world by winning this award.”

From the beginning Wexford knew it had to present something a little different in order to attract people. Back in the early 1950's Wexford was not the easiest place to get to, so a unique selling point needed to be found. The festival's founder Dr Tom Walsh recalled that "programming in the early days entailed giving the public not quite what it wanted but what it might like". That viewpoint has proven to be very successful, and Wexford has excelled at this with over 170 operas presented so far !

Over these 63 years, audiences have made the annual trip to Wexford to discover and indeed re-discover operas from all aspects of the genre. Some of the works presented over the 63 seasons have returned to obscurity following their Wexford outing, while many others have gone on to have more regular stagings around the world. Whatever the ultimate outcome for the opera, visitors to Wexford can always expect performances presented to the highest international standard.  

The 2014 season will be no exception, with Wexford once again presenting three more operatic rarities. Full details of the 2014 season are available on the website.  Come visit us in October and witness for yourself what Wexford does best.

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