Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is going places
■ Donizetti’s great comic opera Don Pasquale began its 12-venue national tour this week at An Grianán, Letterkenny,
Co. Donegal. Graeme Danby and KelliAnn Masterson lead a top-class cast of singers. Kelli-Ann describes the music as ‘lively, upbeat, fun and instantly appealing’, while director Orpha Phelan sees it as a work in which characters live ‘in a world of artificiality and pretence with everyone acting on impulse and using their wits to survive’. Tour details and booking at irishnationalopera.ie
■ Cinderella, billed as a panto for the 21st Century, kicks off the festive season at the Everyman, Cork from this Saturday until Sunday, January 15.
It’s set in a Cork where the townsfolk live their fairytale life – all except for Cinderella, an up-to-date entrepreneurial woman with lots of ambition.
She has a chance encounter with Prince William at the Farmers’ Market. Confident and rebellious, he’s wrapped up in his music, and dreams of a musical life on tour rather than life in a palace.
All the other Cinderella characters are in place, complete with Buttons and nasty relatives determined to stop Cinders getting to the Cork Royal Ball. See everymancork.com