Musical Destinations
Terry Blain visits the home of Ireland’s sole purpose-built opera house and a festival that brilliantly delves into opera’s rarer masterpieces
The 1951 census in Ireland showed Wexford had just 12,000 people living in it. Its once busy harbour was declining, a post-war economic depression lingered, and the idea of starting an international opera festival in the town seemed frankly laughable.
Tom Walsh, however, thought differently. A Wexford man himself, Walsh had qualified as a doctor in Dublin and come home to work in his native area. Walsh was also an ardent opera fan, and when the English writer Compton Mackenzie came to give a gramophone recital at the Wexford Opera Study Circle, he suggested that the society would be better off staging an opera in their local theatre than listening to records.
Walsh took him seriously, and the rest is history. Using Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival as a model, ‘Doctor Tom’ and a group of his friends mounted Wexford’s first Festival of Music and the Arts in October 1951, with a production of Balfe’s The Rose of Castile. Next year marks the 70th anniversary of what is now called Wexford Festival Opera and – coronavirus permitting – the ‘craic’ will no doubt be mighty.
Getting to Wexford requires a little patience, but is relatively easy. It’s two hours south of Dublin by car, and there are train and bus links if you’re flying into Dublin Airport. Alternatively, take a ferry from Fishguard into Rosslare Europort, and Wexford is just 15 minutes’ drive away.
The best time to be there is undoubtedly when the Festival Opera is happening in the second half of October and early November. From the outset the festival has had a unique selling point – it specialises in rarely heard operas. ‘I’m not going to give them what they like, but what I think
they will like’, was how Tom Walsh himself originally put it.
So expect the unexpected – operas by Hérold, Cagnoni and Statkowski are among those which have sent cognoscenti scurrying to their reference books in recent seasons, while contemporary works by Kevin Puts, Peter Ash and John Corigliano have also featured. The Shakespearethemed 2020 festival should have included operas by Catalani, Goldmark and Ambroise Thomas, but was pushed online by the coronavirus.
Mainstage performances at Wexford take place in the walnut-lined auditorium of the National Opera House, an awardwinning facility built on the site of the old Theatre Royal – where the festival started – in 2008. Originally christened Wexford Opera House, it was renamed in 2014 as Irish opera emerged from a period in the doldrums and is the only purpose-built opera house in Ireland.
Performances at Wexford are of a superb standard and the festival prides itself on talent-spotting young singers who subsequently become internationally famous, tenors Juan Diego Flórez and Joseph Calleja and soprano Lise Davidsen among them. The chorus, like Glyndebourne’s, recruits young singers aspiring to a career in the profession, and is excellent.
Between operas – there are typically three per season – there is a plethora of other activities available to festival-goers. Short operas, lectures, lunchtime recitals, plays and choir and orchestral concerts all feature, meaning there is little chance of downtime when the festival is in session. When it’s not, Music for Wexford mounts year-round chamber music concerts, and there are numerous theatrical and choral groups performing locally. And partly overlapping with the opera festival is the multi-genre Wexford Spiegeltent Festival, set on the picturesque quayside of the old town. It boasts a dazzling mix of entertainment, with guests in recent years including Sinead O’connor, Christy Moore and Jools Holland.
Away from music, the area surrounding Wexford is rich in cultural interest. For a dip into Irish history, try the National 1798 Rebellion Centre in nearby Enniscorthy, where the British military clashed with United Irishmen insurgents. Alternatively, delve further back into 9,000 years of Ireland’s history at the Irish National Heritage Park, an outdoor museum packed with relics and reconstructions. And for a pleasant stroll, sample the beautiful gardens at Johnstown Estate, a kind of
Irish Downton Abbey.
Unspoilt coves and beaches stretch for miles along the coast from Wexford, a heaven for enthusiastic walkers. Or you can simply do what many visitors do – wander through the rambling streets of the town (originally a Viking settlement) and absorb the famously affable hospitality of its many bars and restaurants.
In the end, though, the festival’s the thing. It is, as the Financial Times once put it, ‘one of the world’s most remarkable festivals – genuinely festive onstage and off, and placed in a setting that never goes stale no matter how often one visits it’. Further info: For next year’s Festival Opera dates, see wexfordopera.com
The festival has a unique selling point – it specialises in rarely heard operas