Delius’s The Magic Fountain, at Wexford, is unlikely to appeal to many beyond the already converted
Wexford Festival Opera 2025: Singers cope valiantly with composer’s awkward, meandering vocal lines
Wexford Festival Opera
Handel’s fascinating, neglected Deidamia, at Wexford, features virtuoso performances
Wexford Festival Opera 2025: Bruno de Sá reaches heights few male singers can aspire to
Le Trouvère opera is strongly cast but struggles to convey the tensions of Verdi’s story
Wexford Festival Opera 2025: Ben Barnes directs the French-language version of Il Trovatore
Michael Dervan on how opera composer Gioachino Rossini and Ireland are intertwined
From Dublin’s Theatre Royal in 1829 to Wexford’s modern stages, the Italian’s spirit remains woven into Irish operatic history
What does it mean to be a fallen woman?
In my new poetry collection I reclaim tragic heroines, or at least imagine a different ending to their stories
The Guide: Wexford Festival Opera, Greg Davies and more must-do events in the week ahead
Billy Strings in Dublin, 100 years of New Yorker’s Irish writers, Kerry International Film Festival and more
Wexford Festival Opera: ‘It’s a shining beacon. The main companies do not do obscure repertoire at the moment’
Directors Ben Barnes, George Petrou and Christopher Luscombe on the chance to bring lesser-spotted operas Le Trouvère, Deidamia and The Magic Fountain to the stage
Garry Hynes: ‘My wife was taken from me in the blink of an eye. My whole life’s changed’
The Druid founder has a reputation as a demanding director. But she has mellowed – and theatre is a consolation after her wife was ‘taken from me in the blink of an eye’
Festivals in Ireland 2025: From Longitude to All Together Now - a guide to 80 of the best
From Brigit and Dublin Lunar New Year to Culture Night, Space Week and Cork Jazz Festival, here’s our round-up of cultural showcases to catch this year
Abbey Theatre gets €9.5m in strategic funding from Arts Council, €1m more than last year
Almost €60 million spread across nationwide arts bodies
Le Convenienze ed Inconvenienze Teatrali at Wexford Festival Opera 2024: A feast of feuds, rivalries and enmities
Paolo Bordogna nails the role of Mamma Agata, the manipulative helicopter mother in Donizetti’s drama of backstage power struggles
The Critic at Wexford Festival Opera 2024: Outstanding Charles Villiers Stanford revival doesn’t miss a trick
Conor Hanratty’s production treats the composer with all the loving care that he himself had first bestowed on Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play
Le Maschere at Wexford Festival Opera 2024: Brave effort to animate Mascagni’s hugely problematic work doesn’t really come off
Italian operagoers were unimpressed when Le Maschere premiered in 1901. It remains textually and musically verbose with little grip of character or plot
Wexford Festival Opera 2024: ‘The singers are glad they don’t have to talk much. And the actors are delighted they don’t have to sing’
Director Conor Hanratty on the challenges of bringing two sets of performers together in a doubly Dublin opera
The Guide: Ruby Wax, St Vincent, Crowded House and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
October 12th-18th, 2024: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
The Guide: The events to see, the shows to book, and the ones to catch before they end
The best movies, music, art and more coming your way between Saturday, October 28th, and Friday, November 3rd, 2023
La Ciociara review: The audience roars its approval as the curtain falls on this seat-shiftingly vivid opera
Wexford Festival Opera 2023: If you want to hear what a Puccini of the 21st century might have sounded like, this is as good a starting point as any
Andrea Gilligan might not pose the toughest questions, but she knows how to dodge a bullet
Radio: The Lunchtime Live host opts for friendly inquiry rather than wilful baiting, but she needs to stay alert all the same
L’Aube Rouge review: One of those unfortunate works in which problems stand out more clearly than strengths
Wexford Festival Opera 2023: Strong singing and the orchestra playing a blinder can’t mask the disjointedness
Zoraida di Granata review: This early Donizetti, performed in its original form for the first time, is quite an engaging ride
Wexford Festival Opera 2023: An impressively unwavering Claudia Boyle sings the title role, with Matteo Mezzaro as Abenamet and Konu Kim as Almuzir
The Guide: The events to see, the shows to book, and the ones to catch before they end
The best movies, music, art and more coming your way October 21st-27th
Irish soprano Claudia Boyle on a ‘platform to celebrate what a woman is, what a woman can be’
Wexford Festival Opera 2023: The singers Claudia Boyle, Andreea Soare and Na’ama Goldman on this year’s theme of Women and War
What do artists need to be creative? From time and space to hope, six tell us what makes them tick
Half a dozen figures from the arts world reveal what they require to realise their full potential as creators
Obituary: Kenneth Montgomery: Doyen of Irish conductors known for generosity towards colleagues
The Belfast native enjoyed a distinguished career which saw him work with the Ulster Orchestra, the NSO, Sadler’s Wells Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival
Orpha Phelan: ‘I’m very bossy, and I’m clear and organised. I can make things happen’
The director faced a tight schedule when taking on the challenge of Don Pasquale for Irish National Opera
The Selenites review: A persuasive musical focus on magic
Wexford Festival Opera: Conor Mitchell’s short piece feels like a scene being set for something larger
Cinderella review: Not quite happy ever after
Wexford Festival Opera: Alma Deutscher’s first full-length opera is a fairytale that lacks menace or nuance
Wexford Festival Opera 2022: Opening weekend veers from the mundane to the magical
A hot-and-cold La Tempesta, an updated Lalla-Roukh and a star turn by Jennifer Davis in a rare production of Dvorak’s Armida
What is really behind the Wexford Festival Opera funding standoff?
Michael Dervan: Arts Council is in an almost unprecedented bind over grant for the event
PwC to sponsor talent scheme at Wexford Festival Opera
Initiative designed to ‘support and celebrate’ emerging young artists from the opera world
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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