The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, yesterday called Wexford Festival Opera "a fine example of cultural entrepreneurship" as she launched the festival's 2003 programme of events. The festival, which has achieved 100 per cent occupancy over the last seven years, was thriving, she said, because it was "constantly reinventing itself and innovating".
Festival chairman, Mr Ted Howlin, described 2003 as "a particularly difficult year" in view of the 8 per cent cut made to the festival's Arts Council grant, which came after two years of standstill funding. He called on the Tánaiste to do her utmost "to ensure that Government allocate adequate funds to the arts in 2004 and we urge the council to recognise what is being and can be achieved at Wexford and to respond with grant aid which meets our requirements."
This year's programme, which runs from Thursday, October 16th to Sunday, November 2nd, continues the Wexford tradition of unearthing operatic rarities: Weber's Die drei Pintos (as completed by the young Gustav Mahler), Granados's Maria del Carmen, and Weinberger's Svanda Dudak. The piano-accompanied "Opera Scenes" focus on more popular works such as Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann.
The breach which arose in 2001 between the festival and RTÉ over the use of the National Symphony Orchestra has not yet been resolved, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus will once more play in the pit at the Theatre Royal and at the festival's orchestral and choral concerts.
The festival came in for widespread criticism last year over the absence of Irish participation in its productions. Only one Irish singer features in a main production this year - the young soprano Sinéad Campbell. Mezzo soprano Ann Murray, Ireland's most successful singer on today's international scene, who made her Wexford début in 1974, returns to sing Wagner's Wesendonk Lieder.
The festival has secured a three-year commitment from its major commercial sponsor, Diageo Ireland, and has made the surprising move of extending artistic director Mr Luigi Ferrari's contract for a further year, in spite of previous indications to the contrary from both sides.
Chief executive Mr Jerome Hynes told The Irish Times that delivering "a programme on a par with earlier years" had only proved possible by developing new income streams, and that this would not be possible to sustain in the long term. He pointed to a "lack of leadership" on the part of the Arts Council, and said that the council "must give leadership and engage with clients and the arts community".
He was realistic, he said, about the festival's plans to expand the Theatre Royal and build a second performing space. The Government has already committed itself to this project, and he was "still ambitious, but accepting of the current financial circumstances, and actively liaising with the Government".
