Dramatic story lines married to wonderful music

With just eight days to go before the start of the 2014 Wexford Festival Opera, excitement is mounting. The cast and crew are putting the finishing touches to our productions, our army of volunteers is preparing to hit the streets of Wexford, and tickets are flying off the shelves.

I’m often asked how I pick the three main stage operas. Is there a particular theme or strategy? My answer is simple. What I look for is excellence: a strong, dramatic storyline married to wonderful music, and the chance to introduce audiences to a work they might never have heard of, but that richly deserves to be heard. They’re simple but demanding criteria, and this year all three of our main stage operas more than fulfil them.

Watch my latest video log here around this year's operas and read on to find out more about Don Bucefalo  Silent Night and Salomé.

Few people will have heard of Antonio Cagnoni, or his masterpiece, Don Bucefalo, but anyone who’s seen the TV series Glee will find the storyline familiar: a singing teacher tries to put on an opera in a small town. It’s a delightful comedy full of high jinks and silliness, but also replete with beautiful music, and it continues our long tradition of staging the best in 19th century Italian comedy at Wexford.

Book Seats

In a year in which all our thoughts have turned, inevitably, to the First World War, what better time to stage the European premiere of Kevin Puts’ opera Silent Night? Set in the trenches over Christmas 1914, Silent Night is based on the celebrated moment when Scottish, French and German troops laid down their arms and came together to sing carols, play football, and share photographs of their loved ones back home, discovering a common humanity that the horror of war had tried to expunge. It’s a deeply moving piece about our common humanity and the possibilities of reconciliation, even in the darkest times, and rightly won Puts a Pulitzer Prize in 2011. I hope you’ll join us at Wexford to experience it.

Book Seats

Opera lovers may be surprised to find a Salomé on this year’s programme. For more than a century Richard Strauss’s opera has been widely regarded as the definitive version of this beguiling Biblical tale. But the version written, almost simultaneously, by French composer Antoine Mariotte is long overdue a revival. Based on the original French version of Oscar Wilde’s play, it’s a radically different take on the story infused with wild passion and extraordinary music.

Book Seats

That’s far from all. We also have a wonderful array of ShortWorks featuring composers from Puccini to Gilbert and Sullivan, plus talks, film screenings, concerts and more, so join us at Wexford Festival Opera for another 12 days of extraordinary music and performance from some of the brightest talents on the international opera stage. Tickets for all our shows are selling fast. To book yours, call 1850 4 OPERA or visit www.wexfordopera.com

David Agler

Artistic Director

Wexford Festival Opera