Joy of Gluck masterpiece

Irish National Opera is coming to the National Opera House in Wexford on Saturday, 2 March with a production of Gluck’s masterpiece Orfeo ed Euridice, as part of a national tour of 12 venues.

The all-Irish cast is headed by the mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty, whose debut in the role of Orfeo in Galway won widespread critical plaudits. She was praised as ‘quite simply sensational’ by the German magazine Der Opernfreund.

Sharon made her Wexford Festival Opera debut as Lucy Talbot in William Bolcom’s Dinner at Eight in October, when Operawire described her ‘subtle shading and carefully accented vocal line’ as bringing ‘depth and ambiguity to her character’. Sarah Power is the mysterious Euridice while Emma Nash, winner of a PWC Emerging Young Artist Bursary with Wexford Festival Opera in 2017, is Amore.

The co-production with United Fall, in partnership with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, also features an ensemble of singers and dancers with the orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan whose handling of Orfeo was praised by the Irish Times for being ‘consistently attentive to the balance of voices and instruments’. Gluck’s version of the Orpheus myth features the composer’s most famous aria, the profoundly moving ‘Che faro senza Euridice’. With a set by Sabine Dargent, lighting by Stephen Dodd and stunning costumes by Catherine Fay, Emma Martin’s provocative and unmissable production is described as a stirring, multi-sensory experience.