THE OPERAS:
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WEXFORD Festival Opera is continuing its tradition of presenting the ‘best operas rarely seen’ with this year’s programme of a verismo double-bill, a European premiere and a classic Wexford offering involving kidnapping, murder, arson and a posh New York dinner party that doesn’t quite go to plan.
The main opera menu begins with a double-bill by composers in the verismo tradition. Umberto Giordano’s gritty Mala vita was greeted with 24 curtain calls from the audience at its 1892 premiere in the Teatro Argentina, but later fell out of favour. L’oracolo by Franco Leoni, the second half of the double-bill, was first performed at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in 1905. Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, it is directed by Rodula Gaitanou and designed by Cordelia Chisolm who are remembered for their powerful production of Vanessa by Samuel Barber in 2016. Francesco Cilluffo returns to Wexford for the third consecutive year to conduct.
The second production is Dinner at Eight by the American composer William Bolcom, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, a co-production with Minnesota Opera and Atlanta Opera. The opera is based on the 1932 play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, which was later made into a film directed by George Cukor. Mark Campbell was the librettist of the much-loved Wexford production of Silent Night in 2014.
David Agler conducted the world premiere of the opera in Minnesota and said he was thrilled to bring it to Wexford for the European premiere. Tomer Zvulun, who directed the
2014 of Kevin Put’s Silen Night has returned to Wexford to direct.
Dinner at Eight manages to merge the best elements of European opera and the American musical.
In what is described as ‘Classic Wexford’ style, the Festival will present Il bravo by Saverio Mercadante, the sixth of the composer’s operas to be featured at Wexford since 1988.
The production is directed and designed by the team of Renaud Doucet and André Barbe who have given Wexford some of its finest productions in the past. It also features the debut of Gustavo Castillo, the young Venezuelan baritone as well as the Irish soprano Jennifer Davis.