The programme for the 49th Wexford Festival Opera was announced yesterday by the Minister for Arts and Heritage, Ms de Valera.
The festival, which will run from Thursday, October 19th, to Sunday, November 5th, features more than 50 performances, ranging from large and small-scale opera productions to choral and vocal concerts, and late-night appearances by Frances Black and The Nualas.
Artistic director Luigi Ferrari dubbed 2000 the year of the "French connection", with a main operatic programme that includes Tchaikovsky's treatment of Joan of Arc, The Maid Of Orleans, Riccardo Zandonai's Conchita (an Italian opera after a French novel, Pierre Louys' La Femme Et Le Pantin), and Adolphe Adam's Si J'etais Roi (an actual French opera).
In contrast to these rarities, the programme of 90-minute, piano-accompanied opera scenes offers three works from the popular repertory, Gershwin's Porgy And Bess, Verdi's La Traviata and Mozart's Le Nozze Di Figaro.
This year's orchestral concert, by the National Symphony Orchestra under Daniele Callegari, will present a new orchestration by Italian composer Giampaolo Testoni of one of Schumann's major piano works, Carnaval.
The two combined concerts by the Wexford Festival Singers and the Prague Chamber Choir will more than make amends for the absence of a piano in Carnaval by presenting Stravinsky's Les Noces, one of the most individual choral works of the last century, scored for chorus with four pianos and percussion.
And a programme called "Moscow-Paris Return" promises to explore Russo-French connections "in an atmosphere redolent of the samovar and the salon".
Full details and booking information can be had from 05322144, or at the website: www.wexfordopera.com
