This year is the 75th anniversary of Wexford Festival Opera. It will run for just over a fortnight, from Thursday, 15 October to Saturday, 31 October, structured around the theme of ‘one for the head, one for the heart, one for fun.’ The three main operas in these categories are Prokofiev’s The Gambler, Iris by Pietro Mascagni and L’equivoco stravagante by Rossini. They are then supplemented in customary Wexford fashion by a couple of pocket-operas by Balfe and Stanford, recognising earlier Irish contributions to opera, and a new collaboration called The First Festival, with libretto by festival regular, Colm Tóibín and music by Alberto Caruso. Inaugurating things will be a gala concert replete with celebrated singers such as Joseph Calleja, Ermonela Jaho, Daniela Barcellona, and Giorgi Manoshvili, for all of whom Wexford was an important stepping stone in their careers. Calleja will also be taking on the role of Osaka in the production of Iris.
Wexford has led the way over the decades since its inception in rescuing and showcasing operas that have been totally neglected or never found a secure place in the repertoire. Indeed in several cases you could say that the festival has given a crucial promotion to some operas that now are indeed more regularly performed. All three of the operas coming to the main stage have received productions at Wexford previously, but now they will have the benefit of the new facilities and more expansive staging.
The Gambler is an uncompromising work in both style and substance, with spiky modernist music and a tough-minded morality tale drawn from the Dostoevsky novella of the same title. Prokofiev was writing from experience of gambling and its costs, and so had a personal commitment to the themes of the work. But there are still wonderful opportunities here for the creative team to devise a casino scenario and for singers to achieve memorable characterisations.
Iris has of course suffered from the shadow of Cavalleria rusticana, Mascagni’s first great success, that arguably established the fashion for verismo in Italian opera. But this later work, like L’Amico Fritz is exquisitely crafted, with delicate orchestration and arias that are perfectly tailored to the individual character and to capturing the mood and moment in which they fall in the drama. There are extra levels of fascination in the mythical and symbolic setting in Japan which offer great opportunities and challenges for any director and design team.
L’equivoco stravagante or ‘The Bizzare Misunderstanding‘ is an early work of Rossini, dating from 1811. But all the hallmarks of his style are there, and this piece was the audience choice last year for the ‘fun’ category in this year’s programme. Many of the key elements that were to come to into perfect focus in the Barber of Seville, just a few years later, are already clearly discernible – the contest between manipulative and social climbing seniors and sprightly youngsters seeking their own destiny governs the farcical plot, and the whirl of incidents and misunderstandings gives great scope for an inventive director to find a compelling concept.
We were lucky enough to get a foretaste of what is to come from a fine concert in Ironmongers’ Hall, London at the end of last month. There we heard young artists from the Wexford Academy, showcasing some old favourites but also some of the key arias from the forthcoming operas as well as a snippet from Michael Balfe’s The Rose of Castile. On the strength of what we heard the well of musical rarities continues to yield rich resources, and there are many fine voices of the future being carefully nurtured by Rosetta Cucchi and her ever-enthusiastic team.
A visit to Wexford in the autumn looks as usual to be a vital aspect of the operatic calendar, and particularly so given the voices and repertory on offer in this anniversary year.
Photo Credit: Fadil Berisha