(Photo: Maria Rosenblatt) With the start of the Wexford Festival Opera now only a matter of days away, OperaWire has been busy with recent interviews featuring some of the artists involved. One of the more intriguing productions at this year’s festival is “La Ciociara,” set in Italy during the Second World War. Having just interviewed its composer, we thought it {…}
One of the headline operas for this year’s Wexford Festival Opera is Marco Tutino’s 2015 work “La Ciociara,” written for San Francisco Opera. The opera is based on Alberto Moravia’s 1957 novel, which was later turned into a film directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sophia Loren, for which she won an Oscar for best actress. The film now {…}
Photo: RibaltaLuce Studio The Turin-born conductor Francesco Cilluffo sees himself at home in both the Italian and English-speaking worlds. Having graduated from the city’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatoire and then the University of Turin, where he completed a thesis on Benjamin Britten, he moved to London, where he studied at the Guildhall School of Music before going on to King’s College, {…}
Wexford Festival Opera has announced that Paul Cleary has been appointed as its new Chairman of the board of Wexford Festival Trust, effective this month. Cleary has volunteered with WFO for nearly 40 years in various administrative and artistic roles. He joined the board of the Wexford Festival Trust in 2014, and served as Vice Chairman from 2016-18; currently, he {…}
Wexford Festival Opera has been allocated €1.68 million in strategic funding from the Arts Council for 2023. The money allocated in 2023 is an increase of 3 percent or €45,000 from 2022. The Opera Festival is one of 107 arts organizations throughout Ireland sharing in more than €50 million in financial support, from theatre, music, and visual arts to literature {…}
(Photo: Patrick Redmond) Soprano Kelli-Ann Masterson continues to notch up wonderful reviews for her performances across Ireland with Irish National Opera, Opera Collective Ireland, Blackwater Valley Festival and Wexford Festival Opera. At present, she is on tour with Irish National Opera wowing audiences with her Norina in the company’s riotous “Don Pasquale” OperaWire: What was the first opera you saw? {…}
The Wexford Festival Opera has announced its 2023 season which will include 70 events across 13 days. Entitled “Women and War,” the season will kick off with three mainstage opera productions. First up is Donizetti’s “Zoraida di Granato” starring Claudia Boyle and Konu Kim. Bruno Ravella directs with Diego Ceretta conducting. The production will be presented in a co-production with {…}
(Photo: Clive Barda) For this year’s Wexford Festival Opera, its artistic director, Rosetta Cucchi, decided upon “Magic & Music” as its defining theme. As an umbrella term, it gives plenty of scope for selecting the operas for performance. The term can be applied narrowly, restricted to spells, wizards and witches, or more widely, bringing in fairy tales, legends, myths, ghosts, {…}
(Photo: Padraig Grant) One of the attractions for the young singers participating in Wexford Festival Opera’s Factory program is the chance to perform on the main stage in an opera in front of a large audience. Last year, they starred in a very successful production of Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” which featured such artists as Jade Phoenix and {…}
(Photo: Clive Barda) Once upon a time, a magician named Prospero was overthrown and expelled from his kingdom by his brother Antonio. He eventually found refuge, with his daughter Miranda, on a small island that belonged to an evil sorceress called Sicorace, whom he imprisoned in a rock, then turned her monstrous son, Calibrano, into his slave. Using his powerful {…}
(Photo: Padraig Grant) Few people will be familiar with the operas of the 19th century British composer Alfred Cellier. Yet during his day, he was well-known for his comic operas, which are very much in the mould of Gilbert & Sullivan, although he never really posed a threat to their dominance. In 1886, his opera “Dorothy” broke all records with {…}
