Myths and Legends: Wexford Festival Opera to perform Verdi's Le trouvère at 2025 Festival

When the Paris Opera planned to give the first performance at the theatre of Verdi's Otello the maestro was extremely puzzled when it was announced that they would be performing the opera in Italian. Hitherto the Paris Opera had presented Verdi's operas in French, with the Italian versions being given at the Théâtre-Italien. Following the death of Donizetti, Verdi became the Paris Opera's go  to foreign composer. His operas for the theatre included such specifically written grand operas as Les vêpres siciliennes and Don Carlos, but also other works in translation. 

This process would also allow Italian works to be reworked for the French audience, so I Lombardi became Jérusalem. This was a radical revision, effectively a new opera and Verdi had Jérusalem back-translated into Italian, as Gerusalemme but the revision failed to establish itself in either the French or Italian repertory.

Both Luisa Miller and Il trovatore were transformed into French versions for Paris, though the changes here were fewer. They became Louise Miller (a failure) and Le trouvère (a great success).

This latter has every right to be considered a version separate from the original. Not only did Verdi add an extended ballet sequence, writing some of his finest ballet music and even going so far as to weave themes from the opera into the ballet, but the role of Azucena was adjusted including an extended version of the finale of Act Four, to accommodate the role's singer Adelaide Borghi-Mamo. In fact, the French version premiered at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in January1857, before being performed in Paris later that year.

This version only gets very rare outings and it is welcome news that Wexford Festival Opera will be performing Verdi's Le trouvère as part of the 2025 festival, including the ballet music. The production will be conducted by Markus Bosch and directed by Ben Barnes. Bosch is the artistic director of the Opernfestpiele Heidenheim where they have been investigating early and rare Verdi [we saw I Lombardi there in 2018 and Un giorno di regno in 2017]

The 2025 Wexford Festival runs from 17 October to 1 November 2025 and takes its theme as Myths & Legends. There are two further main stage productions. 

Handel's Deidamia in a co-production with Göttingen International Handel Festival who will present the work in 2026. Deidamia will be conducted and directed by George Petrou. Written in 1741, Deidamia was Handel's final Italian opera. Not a success at the time, after this Handel turned his back on Italian opera to concentrate on English oratorio.

Frederick Delius' The Magic Fountain, conducted by Francesco Cilluffo and directed by Christopher Luscombe. Delius' opera was unperformed in his lifetime and only received its premiere, in concert, in 1977 and finally reached the stage in 1997. It was his third opera, coming between Irmelin and Koanga.

In addition, the WFO Factory artists will perform Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims to mark the 200th anniversary of the opera, in a production conducted by Manuel Hartinger and directed by Rosetta Cucchi. There will also be a competition for young directors in Ireland to direct two Pocket Operas, Peter Brook/Georges Bizet's La tragedie de Carmen and Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg.

The Artist-in-Residence for 2025 and 2026 will be composer and writer Ailís Ní Ríain [Pronounced A-leesh Knee Ree-in].

Full details from Wexford Festival Opera's website.

Intriguing work in progress: Alberto Caruso & Colm Toibin's The Master in its first full staging at Wexford

Caruso & Toibin: The Master - Thomas Birch, James Wafer - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo Padraig Grant)

Alberto Caruso and Colm Toibin: The Master; Thomas Birch, James Wafer, Annabella-Vesela Ellis, director Conor Hanratty, music director Alberto Caruso; Wexford Festival Opera, plus Ami Hewitt & Gioele Muglialdo in recital
Reviewed 1 November 2022

Novelist and local boy Colm Toibin turns librettist for an intriguing new opera based on his book about Henry James

In addition to the main stage operas, Wexford Festival Opera's season includes smaller-scale Pocket Operas performing during the day in the Studio Theatre at the National Opera House, with piano accompaniment. This year's programme featured Alberto Caruso's The Master, with a libretto by local-boy, Enniscorthy-born novelist Colm Toibin. We caught the performance on 1 November 2022, the production was directed by Conor Hanratty with designs by Lisa Krugel and Alberto Caruso directed from the piano.

A large cast was headed by Thomas Birch as Henry James, James Wafer as Hammond/Oliver Wendell Holmes and Annabella-Vesela Ellis as Constance Fenimore Woolson. All the cast were members of the Wexford Festival Opera chorus.

The opera's libretto is based on Toibin's novel The Master about Henry James and how, in the wake of the disastrous failure of his play Guy Domville, he gradually retired from public life and devoted himself to writing. It is an intriguing story though perhaps not an obviously operatic one. The impulse to create the opera came from composer Alberto Caruso, the work was workshopped at the University of Boulder (Colorado) in 2014 and completed in 2016.

Beyond Orientalism: Orpha Phelan's imaginative new production of Félicien David's Lalla-Roukh at Wexford Festival

David: Lalla-Roukh - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo CLIVE BARDA ArenaPAL)

Félicien David: Lalla-Roukh; Gabrielle Philiponet, Pablo Bemsch, Ben McAteer, Niamh O'Sullivan, director: Orpha Phelan, conductor Steven White; Wexford Festival Opera at the National Opera House, Wexford
Reviewed 30 October 2022 (★★★★)

David's delightful Orientalist fantasy in an imaginative translocation with winning performances from an international cast

Wexford Festival Opera staged Félicien David's 1859 opera Herculaneum in 2016; the composer's only fully sung grand opera; his other four stage works were all written as opera comique with spoken dialogue.  As part of the 2022 Magic and Music season, Wexford Festival Opera staged Félicien David's Lalla-Roukh, written in 1862 for the Opéra Comique but having a local connection as the libretto is based on the eponymous poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore, whose mother was from Wexford.

We caught a performance on 30 October 2022 in the O'Reilly Theatre at the National Opera House, Wexford. Orpha Phelan directed, Steven White conducted, designs were by Madeleine Boyd, lighting by D M Wood, choreography by Amy Share-Kissiov. Gabrielle Philiponet was Lalla-Roukh, Pablo Bemsch was Nourreddin, Ben McAteer was Baskir, Niamh O'Sullivan was Mirza, plus Emyr Wyn Jones and Thomas D Hopkinson, and Lorcan Cranitch as the narrator.

David: Lalla-Roukh - Pablo Bemsch - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo CLIVE BARDA ArenaPAL)

The opera was sung in Michel Carré and Hippolyte Lucas' original French whilst the original dialogue was replaced by new narration in rhyming couplets by Timothy Knapman.

Wexford Festival Opera expands Wexford Factory to include new repetiteur programme

Wexford Festival Opera is expanding its Wexford Factory programme to include repetiteurs. Wexford Factory is the festival's professional academy for young Irish / Ireland-based singers and 15 young singers are taking part in the 2022/23 term. This year, they are being joined by three pianists Aoife Moran, Eléna Maria Esposito and Rebecca Warren, who will take part in the programme over the course of 2 weeks in September, prior to rehearsals for the 71st Wexford Festival Opera in October, at which they will have opportunities to perform.

See my recent interview with the festival's artistic director, Rosetta Cucchi, in which she introduces the 2022 festival and talks about Wexford Factory and its achievements.

Eléna Maria Esposito is an Irish pianist based in Dublin. She has recently completed her degree in piano performance at the TU Dublin Conservatoire, mentored by Siobhán Kilkelly. Aoife Moran is an Irish pianist currently studying on the Repetiteur course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she previously obtained a Master’s degree in piano accompaniment. Rebecca Warren is a pianist and violinist from Wexford currently studying on the repetiteur Master’s programme at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. 

Full details from the Wexford Festival Opera website.