ShortWorks programme has a premiere and two classics
THE WORLD premiere of Dubliners based on two famous James Joyce short stories, will be a highlight of this year’s ShortWorks programme at Wexford Festival Opera.
The ShortWorks, also featuring Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi and La Scala di seta by Gioachino Rossini, are intimately staged and last approximately one hour in length.
They are presented at Clayton Whites Hotel in addition to the three main evening operas and offer audiences an chance to enjoy a one-act opera or a condensed version of a more familiar opera, performed by leading cast members of the main operas.
Dubliners comprises two one-act operas Counterparts and The Boarding House by the Irish composer Andrew Synnott with adaptation and text by Arthur Riordan which will have four performances during the festival in a co-production with Opera Theatre Company.
The new opera is written for a group of six singers, accompanied by piano and string quartet, and featuring a predominantly Irish cast including soprano Emma Nash, tenor Andrew Gavin and baritone David Howes. The composer will also serve as musical director.
Dubliners marks the operatic debut of the acclaimed theatre director Annabelle Comyn whose prdouctions have been seen at the Abbey Theatre, Druid, Landmark Productions and the Dublin Theatre Festival. She is joined by set designer Paul O’Mahoney, costume designer Joan O’Clery and lighting designer Rory Beaton.
Counterparts centres on office worker Farrington who concentrates more on his drinking plans than his day job and is humiliated by his overbearing boss. His attempt to drown his misery in Dublin’s pubs backfires as he faces yet more humiliation. Frustrated, he returns home where his mood worsens and he takes his anger out on the first person he meets.
The Boarding House caters for clerks and visiting music hall entertainers. The scheming proprietor Mrs. Mooney allows her daughter Polly to spend time with the male residents. When a relationship blossoms between Polly and successful clerk Bob Doran, Mrs. Mooney waits until it is publicly observed, knowing that Doran will have no choice but to propose to James.
La Scala di seta is one of Rossini’s lesser-known works, belonging firmly to his early Italian years and was a key work in his development even if it is more recently that its jewel-like qualities have come to be fully appreciated.
A fast-moving comedy, it’s titles translates as ‘ The Silken Ladder’ – in this case, a stairway to the heaven of various nocturnal rendezvous.
Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, a condensed version of the original, was the first of his operas to have remained popular since its premiere in 1851. It contains some of opera’s most beloved arias including ‘ la donne é mobile’.
The tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunchbacked court jester Rigoletto and Rigoletto’s beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera’s original title, La Maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto’s encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.