There has been massive media coverage of the Wexford opera festival, as usual, with Rupert Christiansen of the Daily Telegraph paying tribute to its "unique charm": "No music festival radiates more of a party atmosphere or involves more convivial rollicking . . . it manages to be flamboyantly posh without being remotely snobbish or uppity," he enthuses. The Theatre Royal he finds "hideously uncomfortable but irresistible in its simple shoe-box elegance, and blessed with wonderfully resonant acoustics which can make callow second-rate Italian tenors sound as honeyed as Caruso." Michael Kennedy in the Sunday Telegraph praised Elena da Feltre: "The cast performed Mercadante as if he was Verdi. Monica Colonna sang Elena with a sweetness and roundness of tone which never hardened under pressure." David Murray of the Financial Times paid tribute to "the distinguished playing" of the NSO, and regretted that "the old sense that the festival had some Irish roots has almost dwindled away".

It was also announced in Montreal last week that the festival brochure has won the Pinnacle Award at the International Festival And Events Association's annual confab. Designed by John Foley of the Cork-based Bite! Associates, the brochure features classically derived images reworked with hyper-swish computer technology: it beat off 1,000 other entries from the earth's four corners. Foley, who also designs for Druid Theatre, the Cork Film Festival and various arts organisations around the country, has now won the award twice in the past three years. "It's a very influential prize, particularly in the States," he says. "I remember seeing a design I entered a couple of years ago being appropriated and used for a festival in California."