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INO Elektra programme book

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STRAUSS<br />

ELEKTRA<br />

KILKENNY ARTS FESTIVAL 2021


IRISH NATIONAL OPERA<br />

PRINCIPAL FUNDER<br />

RICHARD STRAUSS 1864–1949<br />

ELEKTRA<br />

1908<br />

CORPORATE<br />

PARTNER<br />

IN ASSOCIATION WITH KILKENNY ARTS FESTIVAL<br />

TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT<br />

Libretto by Hugo von Hoffmansthal after Sophocles’s Electra.<br />

First Irish performance, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 29 April 1988<br />

(in concert); Kilkenny, Castle Yard, 5 August 2021 (fully staged).<br />

SUNG IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES<br />

Running time: 105 minutes without interval.<br />

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />

Olga, Valerie, Céline, Pat, Aidan and all the team at Kilkenny Arts<br />

Festival. Ciarán Conroy and Anthony Drohan at Kilkenny Civic<br />

Trust; Sinead Gargan and all at Kilkenny Design Centre; Susan<br />

Holland and all at the Design & Craft Council of Ireland.<br />

PERFORMANCES 2021<br />

Thursday 5 August Castle Yard Kilkenny<br />

Saturday 7 August Castle Yard Kilkenny<br />

Tuesday 10 August Castle Yard Kilkenny<br />

Thursday 12 August Castle Yard Kilkenny<br />

Saturday 14 August Castle Yard Kilkenny<br />

03


DREAMING OF ELEKTRA<br />

FERGUS SHEIL<br />

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR<br />

DIEGO FASCIATI<br />

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR<br />

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” “Never waste a good<br />

crisis.” There are lots of clichés to explain unexpected turns of<br />

events. And perhaps the most unexpected in <strong>INO</strong>’s short history<br />

is the presentation of Richard Strauss’s epic <strong>Elektra</strong> in the middle<br />

of a pandemic. It still seems almost surreal that we have been able<br />

to find a way to approach this extraordinarily demanding operatic<br />

landmark in the middle of a social disruption when large groups of<br />

performers and audiences cannot face each other indoors.<br />

Before <strong>Elektra</strong> appeared on our radar, we had already been<br />

working to deliver a live webstream, three operas on film, an online<br />

concert series, a group of street art operas, a site-specific film<br />

project as well as indoor productions for later in the year.<br />

The link to <strong>Elektra</strong> appeared through the idea that the summer –<br />

even the unpredictable Irish summer – would be the best time to<br />

do something big and bold outdoors. We were delighted to find<br />

willing co-conspirators in Olga Barry and her team at Kilkenny<br />

Arts Festival. We went to see the Marble City’s Castle Yard and<br />

were immediately excited by the operatic possibilities which the<br />

space offers. It’s out of doors, but also enclosed. You can see the<br />

sky, yet it somehow still has the feeling of an intimate venue. And,<br />

of course, it’s also part of an environment dripping with history.<br />

Within minutes <strong>Elektra</strong> – an opera actually set in a courtyard –<br />

came brimming up in our thoughts.<br />

The opera was premiered in Dresden in 1909, a time when 19thcentury<br />

romanticism seemed to have already pressed opera<br />

to the limits of human possibility. Yet in <strong>Elektra</strong> Strauss pushes<br />

things even further. Although the work is shorter than many<br />

operas (around 105 minutes without interval), it packs a ferocious<br />

amount into every bar of the score. The singer in title role is<br />

onstage throughout and must scale peak after peak of contrasting<br />

emotions – notably sorrow, anger and longing – before her<br />

gruesome mission can be accomplished.<br />

The pandemic’s disruption of normal life has greatly shortened the horizons<br />

for planning opera. Given that and the sheer unpredictability of recent<br />

months, we are enormously indebted to Giselle Allen for taking on <strong>Elektra</strong>, a<br />

role new to her, at short notice and delighted to present her company debut<br />

in such thrilling style. We have no doubt she will be terrifying audiences for<br />

years to come in this opera! Giselle is joined by two international guests,<br />

Icelandic bass-baritone Tómas Tómasson and American tenor Peter<br />

Marsh, and a further ten outstanding Irish artists. Led by Máire Flavin and<br />

Imelda Drumm in the key roles of Chrysothemis and Klytämnestra, they are<br />

a testament to the strength of Irish vocal talent working today.<br />

The normal arena of work for everybody involved in tonight’s production<br />

is indoors, in the highly-controlled environment of a theatre. <strong>Elektra</strong>’s<br />

exceptionally large orchestral forces meant that pre-recording the<br />

contributions of the Irish National Opera Orchestra and Chorus presented<br />

the only way forward. Their performances, were captured at Dublin’s Bord<br />

Gáis Energy Theatre in the hottest and sunniest week of June. For everybody<br />

else, we signed away our souls to the devil and played Russian roulette<br />

with the Irish weather. We are enormously grateful to our creative team –<br />

director Conall Morrison, set and lighting designer Paul Keogan, movement<br />

director Liz Roche, costume designer Catherine Fay and sound designer<br />

Kevin McGing. They have all taken a great leap of faith with us to create an<br />

unforgettable operatic experience in circumstances that are novel for us all.<br />

None of this would have been possible without the enthusiasm and<br />

dedication our colleagues at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, nor without the<br />

willingness of you our audience in stepping into the unknown. In many ways<br />

a project as crazy and ambitious as this should not have been feasible.<br />

If there were a Guinness World Record entry for the <strong>Elektra</strong> planned and<br />

delivered in the shortest time, ours would surely be it. With the support of<br />

our individual donors and our core funding from The Arts Council, we have<br />

been able to make this particular and very crazy dream come true. Thank<br />

you all for coming, and hold on tight to your seat!<br />

FERGUS SHEIL<br />

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR<br />

DIEGO FASCIATI<br />

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR<br />

04<br />

05


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Image: Rachel Croash in Close by Hannah Peel from <strong>INO</strong>’s 20 Shots of Opera. Photo by Ste Murray<br />

06


ELEKTRA IN ITS OWN TIME<br />

The premiere of Strauss’s <strong>Elektra</strong> in 1909 was a media<br />

sensation. Critics from across Europe and the Americas<br />

turned up in Dresden to report on it. And the chasm<br />

between the coverage of conservatives and progressives<br />

was as wide as it was predictable. As scholar Bryan<br />

Gilliam put it, “<strong>Elektra</strong> made a powerful impression; no<br />

critic – pro or con – would deny that observation, but it is<br />

about all they could agree on.”<br />

It would be tempting to assume that in Ireland, where <strong>Elektra</strong> is<br />

only now being staged for the first time, the coverage would have<br />

more reactionary than progressive. The composer and critic WB<br />

Reynolds, who wrote under the nom-de-plume Rathcol in the<br />

Belfast Evening Telegraph, definitely was not. On Tuesday 5 January<br />

he previewed the opera in a column that was printed between<br />

advertisements for Sunlight Soap, Phosferine tonic and Beecham’s<br />

Pills. On Saturday 6 February, he wrote about<br />

the “great entertainment” he had had from<br />

the newspaper reports on the new work.<br />

“Some of them,” he wrote, “were in the style<br />

of a sensational murder report”.<br />

He praised the report in the Daily Telegraph<br />

(which ran to about 1,200 words), and also<br />

the Standard, where the review included<br />

“some of the ‘motives’ in musical type, one<br />

of which Reynolds included in his own coverage. “The most striking<br />

of these motives,” he wrote, “is that associated with <strong>Elektra</strong>’s hate, a<br />

thoroughly Strauss-like idea in which the essential expressive fact is<br />

not the vocal phrase, though that is characteristic to a great degree,<br />

but the long bass note in the orchestra. No one but Strauss would<br />

ever have thought of such a theme.”<br />

“Orchestrated in Strauss’s manner,” he went on, “this would<br />

have an hysterical, biting, strong quality about it that would tell<br />

tremendously. On paper, this combination of notes looks a bit<br />

impossible, even allowing for enharmonic notation; but, test it on<br />

the ear, and it will be found all right, especially the low E, which is<br />

really magnificent. Strauss gets these far-fetched combinations less<br />

from carrying abstract theory to extremes than from listening to<br />

the natural harmonics of a given note, and selecting his chord from<br />

them. Harmony a la harpe Aeolienne is his fount of inspiration. His<br />

genius lies in his absolutely happy and apt use of these materials.”<br />

Reynolds had fun with the turnout of critics. “One critic is bad enough<br />

sometimes: but 200! Then to imagine these 200 gentlemen, with<br />

perhaps a lady critic or two among them, rushing off to the nearest<br />

telegraph office to despatch their 200 opinions of the work to the<br />

remotest parts of Europe and the two Americas, all the jostling and<br />

babel of tongues, the fuss, the zeal, the wisdom, and the foolishness!<br />

Why, the thing is like comic opera: Strauss ought to write a burlesque<br />

operetta with a musical critics’ chorus in 200 parts.” Reynolds, who<br />

was friendly with James Joyce, set some of the poems of Chamber<br />

Music in 1910. Sadly, the settings have been lost.<br />

Also in 1910 the American music publisher Schirmer issued a<br />

defensively proselytizing short guide to the opera by Australian<br />

pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson. As well as a detailed<br />

motivic analysis, he included the following background/synopsis of<br />

the opera and explanatory breakdown of it into scenes.<br />

“Agamemnon, on his return from the Trojan war, is treacherously<br />

murdered by his false wife Klytämnestra and Aegisth, her lover.<br />

Klytämnestra herself performs the deed, slaying Agamemnon<br />

with a hatchet while he is in his bath, the unmanly Aegisth<br />

merely assisting. The guilty pair then assume the government of<br />

08<br />

09


Mycenae, and Orest, the young son of Agamemnon, is banished. Chrysothemis<br />

and <strong>Elektra</strong>, the daughters, are virtually held prisoners in the palace. We gather<br />

that they are not allowed to marry, for their children would naturally, according<br />

to the Greek ethical code, become avengers of Agamenmon. <strong>Elektra</strong> makes<br />

no attempt to conceal her abhorrence of Klytämnestra and Aegisth, and is<br />

therefore subjected to every imaginable indignity; she is clothed in rags, beaten<br />

by Aegisth, threatened with the dungeon, and her food (after she has refused to<br />

eat with the servants) is thrown to her with that of the dogs. Chrysothemis, of a<br />

more time-serving disposition, is treated with leniency. It is the sacred obligation<br />

of Orest to avenge his father’s murder. Counselled by the oracle of Apollo, he<br />

comes to Mycenae with an old attendant, bringing a fabricated story of his<br />

own death. By this artifice the two easily gain admittance to the palace and kill<br />

Klytämnestra and Aegisth. Most of the retainers at once declare themselves for<br />

Orest, and he quickly makes himself master of the town, amid general rejoicing.<br />

<strong>Elektra</strong> sings a paean of triumph and performs a ceremonial dance in honour of<br />

Agamemnon’s memory, but her weakened frame succumbs to the emotional<br />

strain and she suddenly falls dead.<br />

“Broadly speaking, the music of <strong>Elektra</strong> may be divided into the following scenes:<br />

Introduction. Group of maids drawing water.<br />

1. <strong>Elektra</strong>’s monologue.<br />

2. Chrysothemis and <strong>Elektra</strong>.<br />

3. Klytämnestra and <strong>Elektra</strong> (at first with attendants, afterwards the two alone).<br />

4. Chrysothemis and <strong>Elektra</strong> (momentarily interrupted by two men-servants).<br />

5. <strong>Elektra</strong> and Orest.<br />

6. The Vengeance. <strong>Elektra</strong> alone, then with Chrysothemis and maids,<br />

afterwards <strong>Elektra</strong> and Aegisth.<br />

7. The Triumph. <strong>Elektra</strong>, Chrysothemis, Maids, Chorus behind the scene.”<br />

In spite of the fact that there had been nothing in operatic history quite like<br />

<strong>Elektra</strong> – or indeed Strauss’s earlier Salome – <strong>Elektra</strong> actually came under<br />

attack for plagiarism. The accusations were raised by the Italian scholar,<br />

composer and conductor Giovanni Tebaldini (1864–1952) in 1909. His article in<br />

Image: This caricature of Strauss by<br />

Franz Jüttner (1865–1925), published<br />

in 1910, is captioned “The ‘Elektric’<br />

Execution, by the musical executioner.”<br />

the Rivista Musicale Italiana was titled Telepatia<br />

musical? (Musical telepathy?). In it he traced<br />

what he saw as 48 borrowings from Cassandra<br />

by Italian composer Vittorio Gnecchi (1876–<br />

1954), an opera whose premiere had been<br />

conducted by no less a figure than the great<br />

Arturo Toscanini in Bologna in December 1905.<br />

Strauss, who was a pioneering proponent of<br />

composers’ rights, never responded publicly<br />

to explain any of the points of similarity. But<br />

he did raise the issue in a letter to his friend,<br />

the writer and critic Romain Rolland (1866–<br />

1944) in May 1909. In part, he wrote, “Do you<br />

know a better way to combat hate and envy<br />

than by maintaining a dignified silence? You<br />

of course know the story of Hercules and the<br />

Hydra? Concerning the case of Cassandra-<br />

<strong>Elektra</strong>, I had already decided not to reply<br />

to it since I did not yet know Mr Tebaldini’s<br />

publicity brochure for Gnecchi. Now that I<br />

know it, I will really be quiet.”<br />

Gnecchi’s Cassandra was given in concert,<br />

in Montpelliér in July 2000, and was staged<br />

at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania in<br />

January 2011. Radio France’s recording of<br />

the Montpéllier performance was issued on<br />

CD, and anyone curious about this decidedly<br />

Italianate work will find it currently available<br />

on streaming and download sites.<br />

MICHAEL DERVAN<br />

10<br />

11


CAST IN ORDER OF VOCAL APPEARANCE<br />

CREATIVE TEAM<br />

Erste Magd First Maid Doreen Curran Mezzo-soprano<br />

Conductor<br />

Fergus Sheil<br />

Zweite Magd Second Maid Raphaela Mangan Mezzo-soprano<br />

Director<br />

Conall Morrison<br />

Dritte Magd Third Maid Niamh O’Sullivan Mezzo-soprano<br />

Set, Lighting & Video Designer<br />

Paul Keogan<br />

Vierte Magd Fourth Maid Rachel Croash Soprano<br />

Costume Designer<br />

Catherine Fay<br />

Fünfte Magd Fifth Maid Emma Nash Soprano<br />

Movement Director<br />

Liz Roche<br />

Die Aufseherin The Overseer Mairéad Buicke Soprano<br />

Sound Designer<br />

Kevin McGing<br />

<strong>Elektra</strong> Giselle Allen Soprano<br />

Assistant Conductor & Chorus Director<br />

Elaine Kelly<br />

Chrysothemis Máire Flavin Soprano<br />

Répétiteur<br />

Aoife O’Sullivan<br />

Die Vertraute The Confidante Emma Nash Soprano<br />

Die Schleppträgerin The Train Bearer Rachel Croash Soprano<br />

Klytämnestra Imelda Drumm Mezzo-soprano<br />

Ein junger Diener A Young Servant Andrew Gavin Tenor<br />

Ein alter Diener An Old Servant Brendan Collins Baritone<br />

Orest Tómas Tómasson Bass-baritone<br />

Der Pfleger des Orest Orest’s Tutor Brendan Collins Baritone<br />

Aegisth Peter Marsh Tenor<br />

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA CHORUS<br />

Sopranos<br />

Rheanne Breen<br />

Ami Hewitt<br />

Kelli-Ann Masterson<br />

Maria Matthews<br />

Muireann Mulrooney<br />

Lauren Scully<br />

Mezzo-sopranos<br />

Margaret Bridge<br />

Amy Conneely<br />

Sarah Kilcoyne<br />

Bríd Ní Ghruagáin<br />

Katie Richardson<br />

McCrea<br />

Niamh St John<br />

Tenors<br />

Ciarán Crangle<br />

Fearghal Curtis<br />

Ben Escorcio<br />

Philip Keegan<br />

Richard Shaffrey<br />

Jacek Wislocki<br />

Basses<br />

Desmond Capliss<br />

Lewis Dillon<br />

Jeff Ledwidge<br />

Kevin Neville<br />

Fionn Ó hAlmhain<br />

David Scott<br />

12<br />

13


IRISH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA<br />

PRODUCTION TEAM<br />

First Violins<br />

Sarah Sew leader<br />

David O’Doherty<br />

Hugh Murray<br />

Anita Vedres<br />

David McElroy<br />

Maria Ryan<br />

Second Violins<br />

Larissa O’Grady principal<br />

Nicholas Rippon<br />

Emily Thyne<br />

Camille Farrer<br />

Cliodhna Ryan<br />

Aisling Manning<br />

Third Violins<br />

Aoife Dowdall<br />

Molly O’Shea<br />

Christine Kenny<br />

Justyna Dabek<br />

Christopher Quaid<br />

Katie O’Connor<br />

First Violas<br />

Adele Johnson principal<br />

John Murphy<br />

Benjamin Errington<br />

Aoife Magee<br />

Second Violas<br />

Lisa Dowdall<br />

Richard Hadwen<br />

Alison Comerford<br />

Abigail Prián Gallardo<br />

Third Violas<br />

Nathan Sherman<br />

Carla Vedres<br />

Kathrine Barnecutt<br />

Karen Dervan<br />

First Cellos<br />

David Edmonds principal<br />

Yue Tang<br />

Yseult Cooper-Stockdale<br />

Aoife Burke<br />

Second Cellos<br />

Niamh Molloy<br />

Paula Hughes<br />

Zoë Stedje<br />

Davide Forti<br />

Double basses<br />

Dominic Dudley principal<br />

Malachy Robinson<br />

Aura Stone<br />

Maeve Sheil<br />

Paul Stephens<br />

Alex Felle<br />

Harps<br />

Dianne Marshall principal<br />

Rhian Hanson<br />

Flutes<br />

Lina Andonovska principal<br />

Susan Doyle doubling piccolo<br />

Naoise Ó Briain doubling piccolo<br />

Oboes<br />

Suzie Thorn principal<br />

Jenny Magee<br />

David Agnew doubling cor anglais<br />

Clarinets<br />

Conor Sheil principal<br />

Suzanne Brennan<br />

Seamus Wylie doubling E flat clarinet<br />

Bass Clarinet<br />

Deirdre O’Leary<br />

Bassoons<br />

John Hearne principal<br />

Clíona Warren<br />

Sinéad Frost doubling contrabassoon<br />

Horns<br />

Hannah Miller principal<br />

Joseph Ryan<br />

Liam Duffy<br />

Dewi Garmon Jones<br />

Trumpets<br />

Darren Moore principal<br />

Pamela Snell<br />

Eoghan Cooke<br />

Glen Carr<br />

Paul Kiernan<br />

Nathan McDonnell<br />

Trombones<br />

Ross Lyness principal<br />

Kieran Sharkey<br />

Paul Frost<br />

Tuba<br />

Stephen Irvine principal<br />

Timpani<br />

Noel Eccles principal<br />

Mark McDonald<br />

Percussion<br />

Richard O’Donnell principal<br />

Brian Dungan<br />

Caitríona Frost<br />

Maeve O’Hara<br />

Production Manager<br />

Robert Usher<br />

Stage Manager<br />

Conleth Stanley<br />

Assistant Stage Manager<br />

Aidan Doheny<br />

Technical Stage Manager<br />

Adrian Leake<br />

Technical crew<br />

Brendan Cummins<br />

Stage Crew<br />

Abraham Allen<br />

Chief Electricians<br />

Pip Walsh<br />

Richard Lambert<br />

Lighting Programmer/<br />

Operator<br />

Eoin McNinch<br />

Lighting Crew<br />

Laura Rainsford<br />

Maeubh Brennan<br />

Sound Engineer<br />

Sean McKeown<br />

RF Technician<br />

Amir Carmel<br />

Mix Engineer<br />

Cian Murphy<br />

Sound Crew<br />

Darragh Finn<br />

Sound Assistants<br />

Jessica Hayes<br />

Kate Crook<br />

Video Technician/Programmer<br />

Michael Murray<br />

Video Crew<br />

Geoff Massey<br />

Maurice Veale<br />

Costume Supervisor<br />

Sinead Lawlor<br />

Costume Makers<br />

Esther O’Connor Murphy<br />

Denise Assas-Tynan<br />

Tailors<br />

Gillian Carew<br />

Jim Wallace<br />

Denis Darcy<br />

Textile & Breakdown Artist<br />

Molly Brown<br />

Milliner<br />

Laura Kinsella<br />

Wigs, Hair & Makeup<br />

Supervisor<br />

Carole Dunne<br />

Wigs, Hair & Makeup Assistant<br />

Tee Elliott<br />

Surtitle Operator<br />

Maeve Sheil<br />

Set and Scaffolding<br />

Shane McAuley –<br />

Sassy Event Services<br />

Cart Fabrication<br />

Eugene Finnegan<br />

Dumpster Fabrication<br />

Ian Thompson<br />

Electrics and Distribution<br />

Event Power<br />

Sound Equipment<br />

Mosco<br />

Lighting Equipment<br />

PSI & Cue One<br />

Video Equipment<br />

VisualX<br />

Transport<br />

Trevor Price<br />

ADDITIONAL THANKS<br />

Photography<br />

Ruth Medjber<br />

Ste Murray<br />

Graphic Design<br />

Alphabet Soup<br />

Programme edited by<br />

Michael Dervan<br />

14<br />

15


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

FERGUS SHEIL<br />

CONDUCTOR<br />

CONALL MORRISON<br />

DIRECTOR<br />

PAUL KEOGAN<br />

SET & LIGHTING DESIGNER<br />

CATHERINE FAY<br />

COSTUME DESIGNER<br />

Fergus is the founding artistic<br />

director of Irish National Opera<br />

and has also worked for all major<br />

Irish opera companies. He<br />

has conducted a wide-ranging<br />

repertoire of 35 different operas.<br />

Highlights include Verdi’s Aida, Brian Irvine and<br />

Netia Jones’s Least Like The Other – Searching for<br />

Rosemary Kennedy and Rossini’s La Cenerentola<br />

(Irish National Opera), Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde,<br />

John Adams’s Nixon in China, Rossini’s The Barber<br />

of Seville (Wide Open Opera), Mozart’s Don Giovanni<br />

and, in 2017, Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish-language<br />

opera, Eithne (Opera Theatre Company), the first<br />

modern performance of the work, which was<br />

subsequently recorded and issued on CD by RTÉ<br />

lyric fm. In the orchestral field he has appeared with<br />

the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra,<br />

the Irish Chamber Orchestra and other orchestras<br />

at home and abroad. He has toured the RTÉ<br />

National Symphony Orchestra throughout Ireland<br />

in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Mahler’s<br />

Resurrection Symphony. As a choral conductor he<br />

has worked with the State Choir Latvija (giving the<br />

world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry) and<br />

the BBC Singers. Internationally he has fulfilled<br />

engagements in the USA, Canada, South Africa,<br />

Australia, the UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark,<br />

Sweden, Malta and Estonia. Before founding Irish<br />

National Opera he led both Wide Open Opera (which<br />

he founded in 2012) and Opera Theatre Company.<br />

He has been responsible for presenting over 60<br />

operas, designed for theatres, site-specific venues,<br />

online, and film, with a geographic reach all around<br />

Ireland as well as London, Edinburgh, New York,<br />

Amsterdam and Luxembourg.<br />

Conall Morrison is a director<br />

and writer. As well as numerous<br />

shows for the Abbey and Peacock<br />

theatres, he has directed for the<br />

Royal Shakespeare Company, The<br />

Globe Theatre, English National<br />

Opera, the Lyric Theatre, Landmark Productions,<br />

Fishamble Theatre Company, and Cameron<br />

Mackintosh. Some productions include: Verdi’s La<br />

traviata, Tarry Flynn, Antigone, Haughey/Gregory,<br />

Guaranteed, Hamlet, She Stoops to Conquer, The<br />

Crucible, Martin Guerre, Macbeth, The Taming<br />

of the Shrew, Translations, Dancing at Lughnasa,<br />

Borstal Boy, A Whistle in the Dark, Conversations on<br />

a Homecoming. He co-directed The Great Hunger<br />

with Caitriona McLaughlin in the grounds of IMMA<br />

for Dublin Theatre Festival 2020. He has written<br />

many original plays and adaptations, including<br />

Woyzeck in Winter, his own adaptation from Büchner<br />

and Schubert (Landmark/Galway International<br />

Arts Festival/Barbican Theatre) and The Travels of<br />

Jonathan Swift, adapted from Swift’s work, for the<br />

Blue Raincoat Theatre Company. During lockdown,<br />

he directed four radio plays for RTÉ: The Old Tune<br />

by Samuel Beckett; Strutting and Fretting by Chris<br />

McHallem; Hamlet, Prince of Derry and The United<br />

States vs Ulysses, both by Colin Murphy. He makes<br />

his <strong>INO</strong> debut with <strong>Elektra</strong>.<br />

Paul Keogan’s opera credits include<br />

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro<br />

(Irish National Opera), Monteverdi’s<br />

The Return of Ulysses (Opera<br />

Collective Ireland), Verdi’s Falstaff<br />

(Vienna State Opera), Mozart’s<br />

Die Zauberflöte (Korea National Opera), Piazzolla’s<br />

Maria de Buenos Aires (Cork Opera House), Poulenc’s<br />

Dialogues des Carmélites and Saint-Saëns’s Samson<br />

et Dalila (Grange Park Opera), Klaas de Vries’s Wake<br />

(Nationale Reisopera, Netherlands), Massenet’s<br />

Thérèse and La Navarraise, Foroni’s Cristina, regina di<br />

Svezia and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snegurochka (Wexford<br />

Festival Opera), Janáček’s The Makropulos Case<br />

(Opera Zuid, Netherlands), Shostakovich’s Lady<br />

Macbeth of Mtsensk, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The<br />

Silver Tassie and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking<br />

(Opera Ireland). His theatre and dance designs<br />

include De Profundis and Lady Windermere’s Fan<br />

(Vaudeville Theatre, London), The Plough and The<br />

Stars (Lyric Hammersmith/Abbey Theatre), Postcards<br />

from the Ledge (Landmark Productions), Katie Roche,<br />

Cyprus Avenue, Our Few and Evil Days, The Risen<br />

People and Drum Belly (Abbey Theatre), Hamlet, The<br />

Snapper, The Red Shoes, The Birds, Performances,<br />

Molly Sweeney (Gate Theatre), The Caretaker (Bristol<br />

Old Vic), The Gaul (Hull Truck), The Miser (Garrick<br />

Theatre, London), Tribes (Crucible, Sheffield), Double<br />

Cross, Here Comes the Night (Lyric Theatre, Belfast),<br />

A Streetcar Named Desire (Liverpool Playhouse), Far<br />

Away (Corcadorca Theatre Company), Big Maggie<br />

(Druid, Galway), No Man’s Land (English National<br />

Ballet), Cassandra and Hansel and Gretel (Royal<br />

Ballet) and Flight (Rambert).<br />

Catherine Fay designs costumes for<br />

theatre, dance and opera.<br />

She has worked on many<br />

productions over the years in a<br />

variety of venues, nationally and<br />

internationally. She made her<br />

<strong>INO</strong> debut with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at Galway<br />

International Arts Festival in 2019. Other highlights<br />

include Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Opera Theatre<br />

Company), Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses<br />

(Opera Collective Ireland), The Plough and the Stars<br />

(Lyric Hammersmith/Abbey Theatre), Britten’s Owen<br />

Wingrave (Opera Collective Ireland/Opéra Bastille,<br />

Paris), Näher… closer, nearer, sooner (Liz Roche<br />

Company in association with the Goethe-Institut),<br />

Embargo (Fishamble Theatre Company, Dublin<br />

Theatre Festival), A Midsummer Night’s Dream<br />

(Rough Magic, Kilkenny Arts Festival), Romeo and<br />

Juliet (Gate Theatre). She holds the position of Chair<br />

of the Irish Society of Stage and Screen Designers<br />

(ISSSD). She is a graduate of NCAD and is presently<br />

studying for her MA, Art in the Contemporary World.<br />

16<br />

17


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

LIZ ROCHE<br />

MOVEMENT DIRECTOR<br />

KEVIN McGING<br />

SOUND DESIGNER<br />

ELAINE KELLY<br />

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR<br />

& CHORUS DIRECTOR<br />

AOIFE O’SULLIVAN<br />

RÉPÉTITEUR<br />

Liz is choreographer, co-founder<br />

and Artistic Director of Dublinbased<br />

dance company Liz Roche<br />

Company (formerly Rex Levitates).<br />

Since 1999 the company has<br />

produced and toured over 20<br />

of her choreographies, performing throughout<br />

Ireland and internationally at prestigious venues<br />

and festivals including the Baryshnikov Arts Centre<br />

New York, South Bank Centre London, Edinburgh<br />

Fringe Festival, Meet in Beijing Festival and<br />

Powerhouse Brisbane. She has been commissioned<br />

to make and work for dance companies, venues<br />

and festivals including the the Abbey Theatre,<br />

Dublin Dance Festival, Cork Opera House, the<br />

National Ballet of China, Goethe-Institut Ireland,<br />

the National Gallery of Ireland, Arcane Collective,<br />

Croí Glan Integrated Dance, Scottish Dance<br />

Theatre, Dance Theatre Ireland and CoisCéim<br />

Dance Theatre. Her work in opera includes Verdi’s<br />

Aida for Irish National Opera and National Opera<br />

of Korea, Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Mines<br />

of Sulphur for Wexford Festival Opera, Rossini’s<br />

Semiramide for the Rossini Opera Festival and Liceu<br />

Barcelona, Salieri’s Axur, re d’Ormus and Mozart’s<br />

Lucio Silla for Zurich Opera House, Lucio Silla at<br />

Opéra de Nice, and Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa and<br />

Queen of Spades, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of<br />

Mtsensk, Verdi’s Aida, Giordano’s Andrea Chénier,<br />

Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Verdi’s Don Carlos and<br />

Mark Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie for Opera<br />

Ireland. Her choreography for theatre productions<br />

has been widely seen at the Abbey Theatre,<br />

Landmark Productions, Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Siren<br />

Productions, and Gate Theatre. In 2020 she was<br />

elected to Aosdána.<br />

Kevin has a long and varied career<br />

as a sound designer in theatre, live<br />

sound and recording. He is also<br />

active in system design, assembly<br />

and operation, logistics, project and<br />

team management for shows, events<br />

and tours. His production, designer, mix engineer,<br />

recording engineer and consultant credits include<br />

Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’s Least Like the Other<br />

(Irish National Opera), Riverdance 25th Anniversary<br />

Show, Aladdin (Gaiety Theatre), The Beacon (Druid/<br />

Gate Theatre), RIOT (THISISPOPBABY/Vicar Street),<br />

Riverdance – The Show (worldwide since 2005),<br />

Heartbeat of Home (Piccadilly Theatre, London), KHS<br />

350 Gala Concert (King’s Hospital School), Sive (Druid/<br />

Gaiety Theatre), The Rape of Lucrece (Gate Theatre),<br />

World Festival of Families (Tyrone Productions); The<br />

Snow Queen (Gaiety Theatre), Angela’s Ashes – The<br />

Musical (Irish tour), Jeff Dunham’s Relative Disaster<br />

(Netflix/Inevitable Pictures/Bord Gáis Energy Theatre),<br />

Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Bizet’s Carmen,<br />

Verdi’s La traviata, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and La<br />

bohème (Bord Gáis Energy Theatre), Heartbeat of Home<br />

(on tour), and Riverdance, Live at the Marquee, Cork.<br />

Elaine Kelly joined Irish National<br />

Opera’s ABL Aviation Opera<br />

Studio as a conductor in 2019.<br />

Since then she has worked as<br />

assistant conductor and chorus<br />

director on productions of<br />

Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Mozart The Abduction<br />

from the Seraglio, Puccini’s La bohème, Maxwell<br />

Davies’s The Lighthouse and Gerald Barry’s Alice’s<br />

Adventures Under Ground. She conducted the<br />

premiere of Amanda Feery’s As Above, So below at<br />

the 2020 First Fortnight Festival, and conducted<br />

nine new works by Irish composers in <strong>INO</strong>’s<br />

internationally-praised 20 Shots of Opera, the<br />

biggest single-event commissioning project in Irish<br />

operatic history, which was streamed worldwide<br />

last December. In 2014 she won the inaugural<br />

ESB Feis Ceoil Orchestral Conducting Competitoin<br />

which led to engagements with the RTÉ Concert<br />

Orchestra. She has also worked with the Dublin<br />

Symphony Orchestra (of which she was musical<br />

director from 2017–2019), Cork Concert Orchestra,<br />

CSM Symphony Orchestra, Cork Fleischmann<br />

Orchestra and the Fleischmann Choir, and in<br />

2015 was the assistant conductor for Irish Youth<br />

Opera’s production of Handel’s Agrippina. She is<br />

currently the conductor of the University of Limerick<br />

Orchestra and musical director to the awardwinning<br />

Cork-based choir, Cantate. She is a BMus<br />

and MA graduate of the MTU Cork School of Music<br />

where she studied conducting with Alan Cutts and<br />

violin with Colette O’Brien and Adrian Petcu. She<br />

has participated in masterclasses with and worked<br />

as assistant to many distinguished conductors.<br />

Aoife O’Sullivan was born in Dublin<br />

and studied at the College of Music<br />

with Frank Heneghan and later at<br />

the RIAM with John O’Conor. She<br />

graduated from Trinity College<br />

Dublin with an honours degree in<br />

music. In September 1999 she began her studies<br />

as a Fulbright scholar at the Curtis Institute of Music<br />

and in 2001 she joined the staff there for her final two<br />

years. She was awarded the Geoffrey Parsons Trust<br />

Award for accompaniment of singers in 2005. She<br />

has worked on the music staff at Wexford Festival<br />

Opera, and on three Handel operas for Opera Theatre<br />

Company, Orlando, Xerxes, and Alcina, and for Opera<br />

Ireland on Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and<br />

Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also<br />

worked at the National Opera Studio in London and<br />

was on the deputy coach list for the Jette Parker<br />

Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House<br />

Covent Garden. She has played for masterclasses<br />

including those given by Malcolm Martineau, Ann<br />

Murray, Thomas Allen, Thomas Hampson and Anna<br />

Moffo. She worked on Mozart’s Zaide at the Britten<br />

Pears Young Artist Programme and on Britten’s<br />

Turn of the Screw for the Cheltenham Festival with<br />

Paul Kildea. She has appeared at the Wigmore Hall<br />

in concerts with Ann Murray (chamber versions of<br />

Mahler and Berg), Gweneth Ann Jeffers, Wendy Dawn<br />

Thompson and Sinéad Campbell Wallace. She is now<br />

based in Dublin where she works as a répétiteur and<br />

vocal coach at TU Dublin Conservatoire and also<br />

regularly for <strong>INO</strong>.<br />

18<br />

19


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

GISELLE ALLEN<br />

SOPRANO<br />

ELEKTRA<br />

MÁIRE FLAVIN<br />

SOPRANO<br />

CHRYSOTHEMIS<br />

IMELDA DRUMM<br />

MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />

KLYTÄMNESTRA<br />

TÓMAS TÓMASSON<br />

BASS-BARITONE<br />

OREST<br />

Irish soprano Giselle Allen’s recent<br />

highlights include Anna Maurrant<br />

in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene at<br />

her artistic home, Opera North,<br />

where she also appeared in the<br />

title role in a new production<br />

of Puccini’s Tosca. At Welsh National Opera she<br />

received outstanding reviews as Magda Sorel in<br />

Menotti’s The Consul. She has appeared with RTÉ<br />

National Symphony Orchestra as Minnie in Puccini’s<br />

La fanciulla del West. Past success with Opera<br />

North include Mila in Janáček’s Osud and Santuzza<br />

in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana as part of The<br />

Little Greats, a series of six short operas presented<br />

on tour in the UK; she also sang the title role in<br />

Strauss’s Salome in concert at The Sage, Gateshead,<br />

garnering the admiration of colleagues and audience<br />

alike. Other career highlights include Ellen Orford<br />

in Britten’s Peter Grimes at Bergen International<br />

Festival under the baton of Ed Gardner, a role she<br />

previously sang at Opera North, Berlin’s Komische<br />

Oper and in the renowned 2013 Snape Maltings<br />

production on the beach at Aldeburgh (broadcast<br />

on BBC4 and released on DVD); and the roles of<br />

Gutrune, Gerhilde and Freia in Wagner’s Ring cycle<br />

in the celebrated Opera North production of 2016,<br />

which toured the UK and was broadcast live on<br />

BBC4. This year, she appeared as Miss Jessell in<br />

a new production by Andrea Breth of Britten’s The<br />

Turn of the Screw streamed and recorded for future<br />

release on DVD at La Monnaie in Brussels. She<br />

makes her <strong>INO</strong> debut as <strong>Elektra</strong>.<br />

With an engaging presence and<br />

delightful charisma Dublin-born<br />

soprano Máire Flavin represented<br />

Ireland at BBC Cardiff Singer<br />

of the World in 2011, when she<br />

was a finalist in the Song Prize.<br />

Recent operatic highlights include her Wexford<br />

Festival Opera debut, creating the role of Bianca<br />

in Andrew Synnot’s La cucina; Anna Sørensen in<br />

the British premiere of Kevin Puts’s Silent Night;<br />

Contessa d’Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro,<br />

and her role debut as Hanna Glawari in Lehár’s<br />

The Merry Widow (Opera North); her Austrian<br />

debut as Contessa d’Almaviva in Le nozze di<br />

Figaro (Salzburger Landestheater); Hannah in the<br />

premiere of Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s<br />

The Second Violinist and Contessa d’Almaviva in Le<br />

nozze di Figaro (Irish National Opera); and Mimi in<br />

Puccini’s La bohème (Cork Opera House). She has<br />

also performed lead roles with Théâtre des Champs<br />

Elysées, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne<br />

on Tour, Scottish Opera, Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing,<br />

Northern Ireland Opera, Opera Collective Ireland<br />

and Welsh National Opera. She has appeared in<br />

concert with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra,<br />

the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert<br />

Orchestra, and the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck.<br />

Future engagements see role debuts including the<br />

title role in a new production of Handel’s Alcina<br />

(Opera North), and Elena in a new production of<br />

Rossini’s La donna del lago (Buxton International<br />

Festival); she also performs in Viennese Whirl with the<br />

Orchestra of Opera North at Leeds and Huddersfield<br />

Town Halls.<br />

Imelda Drumm enjoys a successful<br />

international singing career. For<br />

over 30 years she has forged strong<br />

relationships with Glyndebourne<br />

Festival and Welsh National Opera<br />

in the UK and here in Ireland with<br />

Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, Wide Open<br />

Opera, Lyric Opera Productions and Irish National<br />

Opera as well as the RTÉ National Symphony<br />

Orchestra and RTÉ Concert Orchestra. She has<br />

won many national and international awards. These<br />

include the UK Esso and Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks<br />

Glyndebourne Awards. She sang the role of Hansel in<br />

the 1999 Laurence Olivier Award winning production<br />

of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at WNO. Her<br />

recordings include Hansel and Gretel for Channel 4<br />

TV, Janáček’s Jenůfa under Charles Mackerras, and<br />

Verdi’s Falstaff with Bryn Terfel for S4C. In 2017 she<br />

took the role of Nuala in a concert performance of<br />

Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish-language opera Eithne with<br />

the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under Fergus<br />

Sheil, a CD of which was released on the RTÉ lyric fm<br />

label. Imelda, who was born in Laois and currently<br />

lives in Bray, is also staff lecturer in vocal studies<br />

at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She takes a<br />

keen interest in vocal pedagogy and health, and her<br />

doctoral research investigated the action of female<br />

reproductive hormones on classical singers; it is<br />

available in TARA the research repository at Trinity<br />

College. She made her <strong>INO</strong> debut as Amneris in<br />

Verdi’s Aida at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in 2018.<br />

Following his studies in Reykjavik<br />

and at the Royal College of Music<br />

in London, Tómas Tómasson<br />

regularly guests in a vast repertoire<br />

at the most renowned houses and<br />

institutions worldwide, including<br />

the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna<br />

State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Semperoper<br />

Dresden, Berlin State Opera, La Scala, Teatro<br />

dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Real de Madrid, Gran<br />

Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Théâtre de la Monnaie,<br />

Brussels, Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, Lyric<br />

Opera of Chicago and Los Angeles Opera. His<br />

concert repertoire includes key works, such as<br />

Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s<br />

Creation, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Mahler’s<br />

Symphony No. 8. He collaborated with conductors<br />

such as Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Antonio<br />

Pappano, Andris Nelsons, Simone Young and<br />

René Jacobs. In the 2018-19 season, he was seen<br />

and heard as Wotan in Wagner’s Ring at Grand<br />

Théâtre de Genève, and in the following season<br />

engagements included Wotan in Die Walküre and<br />

Tomsky in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at<br />

Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Amfortas in Wagner’s<br />

Parsifal in Palermo, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila at<br />

Washington National Opera, and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s<br />

new production of Janáček’s The Makropulos Case at<br />

Zurich Opera House under the baton of Jakub Hrůša.<br />

In 2021 he returned to Grand Théâtre de Genève<br />

as Klingsor in a concert version of Parsifal under<br />

Jonathan Nott. Future engagements include the<br />

world premiere of Péter Eötvös’s Sleepless at Berlin’s<br />

State Opera with revivals in Geneva and Budapest,<br />

as well as Orest in <strong>Elektra</strong> at Opéra de Paris under<br />

Semyon Bychkov. Orest is his <strong>INO</strong> debut.<br />

20<br />

21


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

PETER MARSH<br />

TENOR<br />

AEGISTH<br />

DOREEN CURRAN<br />

MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />

ERSTE MAGD<br />

FIRST MAID<br />

RAPHAELA MANGAN<br />

MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />

ZWEITE MAGD<br />

SECOND MAID<br />

NIAMH O’SULLIVAN<br />

MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />

DRITTE MAGD<br />

THIRD MAID<br />

American tenor Peter Marsh has<br />

sung an astonishing number of very<br />

different roles in his career. Mime<br />

in Wagner’s Siegfried (available on<br />

CD & DVD on OehmsClassics), the<br />

Shabby Man in Shostakovich’s Lady<br />

Macbeth of Mtsensk, Oedipus in Stravinsky’s Oedipus<br />

Rex, Leukippos and Apollo in Strauss’s Daphne,<br />

the Captain in Berg’s Wozzeck, Caliban in Thomas<br />

Adès’s The Tempest, the Witch in Humperdinck’s<br />

Hänsel und Gretel, Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung<br />

aus dem Serail (available on DVD), and Matteo in<br />

Strauss’s Arabella. Other roles include the title role in<br />

Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg, Kimmo in Sallinen’s Kullervo,<br />

and the title role in Britten’s Peter Grimes. He enjoyed<br />

great success singing Walter in a new production of<br />

Weinberg’s Die Passagierin in Oper Frankfurt, which<br />

went on tour to the Festwochen in Vienna. He also<br />

performed the role at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv.<br />

Other engagements have taken him to the Seattle<br />

Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the<br />

Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg state operas,<br />

Düsseldorf, Brussels, Tiflis, Montepulciano, Tokyo<br />

and the Bregenz and Edinburgh festivals. Peter<br />

Marsh has been a member of the Oper Frankfurt<br />

ensemble since 1998. The role of Aegisth marks his<br />

debut with Irish National Opera.<br />

Derry-born mezzo-soprano Doreen<br />

Curran’s opera roles include the<br />

title role in Handel’s Radamisto<br />

(Northern Ireland Opera), Ottavia<br />

in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di<br />

Poppea (English National Opera,<br />

Opera Theatre Company, Aldeburgh and Buxton),<br />

Mercédès in Bizet’s Carmen (Glyndebourne Touring<br />

Opera and ATAO Tenerife), Blanche in Prokofiev’s The<br />

Gambler (Grange Park Opera), Tamiri in Vivaldi’s Farnace<br />

(Salzburg), Zoë in Respighi’s La fiamma, Ernestina in<br />

Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro and Clione in Fauré’s<br />

Penelopé (Wexford Festival Opera), Cherubino in<br />

Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Garsington Opera and Savoy<br />

Opera), Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Holland<br />

Park Opera), Kate in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates<br />

of Penzance, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro<br />

(English National Opera), Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria<br />

rusticana (Opera Northern Ireland), Suzuki in Puccini’s<br />

Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera Productions, Dublin),<br />

Second Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and La Ciesca<br />

in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Opera Ireland), Rosina in<br />

Rossini’s Barber of Seville (Opera Theatre Company and<br />

Armonico Consort), Madame Flora in Menotti’s The<br />

Medium, Mother in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel,<br />

Mrs Noye in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, Mary in Wagner’s<br />

The Flying Dutchman, Lady Macbeth’s Lady in Waiting<br />

in Verdi’s Macbeth (Northern Ireland Opera), and Third<br />

Secretary in John Adams’s Nixon in China (Wide Open<br />

Opera). She has also performed in concert with the<br />

London Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony, the<br />

RTÉ Concert, European Youth, Irish Chamber, Royal<br />

Liverpool Philharmonic and Ulster Orchestras and has<br />

given recitals internationally. She made her Irish National<br />

Opera debut in Madama Butterfly in 2019.<br />

Raphaela trained as a mezzosoprano,<br />

obtaining a recordbreaking<br />

First Class Honours<br />

Degree from the DIT Conservatory<br />

of Music and Drama in Dublin and a<br />

Post Graduate Distinction from the<br />

Flanders Opera Studio in Belgium. Her singing career<br />

has seen her perform across the UK and Europe and<br />

her roles have included Bradamante in Handel’s<br />

Alcina, Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di<br />

Poppea, Marcellina in Mozart’s The Marriage of<br />

Figaro, Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande,<br />

Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Glasha and Varvara<br />

in Janáček’s Katya Kabanová, Buttercup in Gilbert &<br />

Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, Euridice in Haydn’s L’anima<br />

del filosofo, Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and<br />

Mrs Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.<br />

Irish performances include the title role in Bizet’s<br />

Carmen, Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro,<br />

Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Tessa in Gilbert &<br />

Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, Bianca in Britten’s The Rape<br />

of Lucretia, Penelope in Monteverdi’s The Return of<br />

Ulysses, her <strong>INO</strong> debut as Third Lady in Mozart’s The<br />

Magic Flute, and Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hansel<br />

and Gretel. She has performed in concert with the<br />

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert<br />

Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Co-Orch and the<br />

Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra. Away from<br />

home she has performed in at the Usher and McEwan<br />

Halls, Edinburgh, and Linbury Theatre in London. She<br />

also sings with leading choral societies in Ireland and<br />

Britain, regularly performing Verdi’s Requiem, Elgar’s<br />

The Dream of Gerontius and Handel’s Messiah.<br />

26-year-old Irish mezzo-soprano<br />

Niamh O’Sullivan, praised for her<br />

“bewitchingly beautiful, dark vibrant<br />

voice” (Süddeutsche Zeitung),<br />

studied at the Royal Irish Academy<br />

of Music in Dublin under Veronica<br />

Dunne. She was a member of the Opera Studio at<br />

the Bavarian State Opera from 2016 to 2018. Her<br />

numerous Munich appearances include Hänsel in<br />

Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Kate Pinkerton<br />

in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the Secretary in<br />

Menotti’s The Consul and Flora in Verdi’s La traviata.<br />

She also travelled with the Bavarian State Opera for a<br />

concert performance of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier<br />

at Carnegie Hall under Kirill Petrenko. She made<br />

her <strong>INO</strong> debut as Tisbe in Rossini’s La Cenerentola<br />

in 2018. In concert, she has performed Elgar’s Sea<br />

Pictures as part of the Munich Festspiele; Mozart’s<br />

Requiem and Handel’s Messiah with the Münchner<br />

Hofkantorei; Cain in Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio Il<br />

primo omicidio; and Cousser’s serenata The Applause<br />

of Mount Parnassus at the Wigmore Hall. In the 2021-<br />

22 season, she will make her Zurich Opera House<br />

debut as Wellgunde in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and<br />

return to Irish National Opera to create the role of<br />

Alva in Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s The<br />

First Child, sing Asteria Vivaldi’s Bajazet (Irish tour and<br />

also at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre in<br />

London) and Mercédès in Bizet’s Carmen. She will also<br />

make her Wexford Festival Opera debut as Paulina<br />

in Goldmark’s Ein Wintermärchen before making her<br />

debut with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra as<br />

Ghiva in Wallace’s Lurline.<br />

22<br />

23


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

RACHEL CROASH<br />

SOPRANO<br />

VIERTE MAGD/DIE SCHLEPPTRÄGERIN<br />

FOURTH MAID/THE TRAIN BEARER<br />

EMMA NASH<br />

SOPRANO<br />

FÜNFTE MAGD/DIE VERTRAUTE<br />

FIFTH MAID/THE CONFIDANTE<br />

ANDREW GAVIN<br />

TENOR<br />

EIN JUNGER DIENER<br />

A YOUNG SERVANT<br />

BRENDAN COLLINS<br />

BARITONE<br />

EIN ALTER DIENER<br />

AN OLD SERVANT<br />

Dublin soprano Rachel Croash is a<br />

graduate of the Royal Irish Academy<br />

of Music and Maynooth University.<br />

She made her <strong>INO</strong> stage debut<br />

in Mozart’s The Opera Director in<br />

April 2018, returned as First Lady<br />

in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Kate Pinkerton in<br />

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and was one of the<br />

soloists in the premiere of Evangelia Rigaki’s This<br />

Hostel Life. Her 2017 performance as Úna in Robert<br />

O’Dwyer’s Eithne (Opera Theatre Company) was<br />

issued on CD on the RTÉ lyric fm label. She has<br />

been an Opera Theatre Company OPERA HUB artist<br />

and her numerous awards include two bursaries at<br />

Wexford Festival Opera in 2015. She was a finalist<br />

in the 9th Festspiele Immling International Singing<br />

Competition and was subsequently invited back to<br />

perform Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Gilda<br />

in selected scenes of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Other opera<br />

roles include Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème, Mabel<br />

in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and<br />

Valencienne in Lehár’s The Merry Widow (Lyric Opera<br />

Productions), Elvira in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri<br />

and Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Blackwater<br />

Valley Opera Festival), Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze<br />

di Figaro and Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen (Cork<br />

Opera House), Reneé in Delius’s Koanga (Wexford<br />

Festival Opera), Serafina in Donizetti’s Il campanello,<br />

Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and<br />

Annina in Verdi’s La traviata (Wexford Festival Opera<br />

ShortWorks), Mrs Coyle in Britten’s Owen Wingrave<br />

(Opera Collective Ireland) and Susanna in Wolf-<br />

Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret (Opera Theatre Company).<br />

Cork soprano Emma Nash<br />

made her <strong>INO</strong> debut in Gluck’s<br />

Orfeo ed Euridice for which the<br />

Sunday Independent praised her<br />

“powerfully soaring Amore”. She<br />

graduated with distinction from the<br />

MA in Opera Performance course at the Royal Welsh<br />

College of Music and Drama, and is a winner of the<br />

PWC/Wexford Festival Opera Emerging Young Artist<br />

bursary and the University Concert Hall Limerick<br />

Rising Star Award. She created the role of Polly<br />

in Andrew Synnott’s Dubliners (Wexford Festival<br />

Opera ShortWorks/Opera Theatre Company), and<br />

also created roles in Tom Lane’s Irish Times Irish<br />

Theatre Award-nominated opera series, The Cork<br />

Opera House Trilogy. She is a regular collaborator<br />

with composer Irene Buckley and sang in her new<br />

score for Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc<br />

(Edinburgh International Film Festival, Union Chapel<br />

London, Cork French Film Festival) and in The<br />

Lament of Art O’Leary. Other notable roles include<br />

Cunegonde in Bernstein à la carte (Wexford Festival<br />

Opera ShortWorks), Yum-Yum in Gilbert & Sullivan’s<br />

The Mikado (Cork Opera House), Handmaiden<br />

in Cherubini’s Medea (Wexford Festival Opera),<br />

Valencienne in Lehár’s The Merry Widow (Cork<br />

Opera House), Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and<br />

Gretel (Wexford Festival Opera ShortWorks), Gilda<br />

in Verdi’s Rigoletto (Opera Theatre Company), Lucia<br />

in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (Opera Collective<br />

Ireland), Storyteller in Brian Irvine’s The Oldest<br />

Woman in Limerick (Dumbworld/Wide Open Opera),<br />

Janthe in Marschner’s Der Vampyr (The Everyman/<br />

Cork Operatic Society), and Moppet in Britten’s Paul<br />

Bunyan (Welsh National Youth Opera).<br />

Andrew completed his Masters in<br />

Music Performance at the Royal<br />

Irish Academy of Music in Dublin<br />

in 2016, achieving First Class<br />

Honours under the tutelage of Mary<br />

Brennan. He is also a graduate of<br />

the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where<br />

he attained First Class Honours in English Literature;<br />

he also holds an MPhil in Children’s Literature from<br />

Trinity College Dublin. He made his Irish National<br />

Opera debut in April 2018 as Curzio in Mozart’s<br />

The Marriage of Figaro. In October 2017 he created<br />

the roles of Alleyne, O’Halloran and Bob in Andrew<br />

Synnott’s Dubliners at Wexford Festival Opera,<br />

and later performed the work with Opera Theatre<br />

Company in Dublin. Earlier in 2017 he sang the role<br />

of Damon in Opera Theatre Company’s national tour<br />

of Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the Irish Baroque<br />

Orchestra. He made his Wigmore Hall debut in<br />

2016 as part of Irish Culture in Britain: A Centenary<br />

Celebration. At the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2016 he<br />

sang the role of Arbace in a concert performance of<br />

Mozart’s Idomeneo, and he was also a winner of the<br />

2016 PwC Wexford Festival Opera Emerging Young<br />

Artist bursary. His notable oratorio engagements<br />

include Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Liszt’s Coronation<br />

Mass, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Choral),<br />

Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.<br />

2 (Lobegesang), CPE Bach’s Magnificat, Mozart’s<br />

Requiem, Haydn’s The Creation, Beethoven’s Mass in<br />

C, Bach’s St John Passion and the complete Mozart<br />

mass series of the Dún Laoghaire Choral Society.<br />

Brendan trained at the Cork<br />

School of Music and the DIT<br />

Conservatory of Music and Drama,<br />

and was granted a scholarship<br />

to study at the Opera Studio of<br />

La Monnaie de Munt in Brussels<br />

under renowned bass-baritone José van Dam. He<br />

made his Irish National Opera debut as Crespel in<br />

Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann in 2018, and<br />

returned to sing Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama<br />

Butterfly in March 2019. His repertoire of over<br />

60 roles includes the title role in Puccini’s Gianni<br />

Schicchi, Conte Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di<br />

Figaro, Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème, Escamillo in<br />

Bizet’s Carmen, Tonio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Alfio<br />

in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, Germont père<br />

in Verdi’s La traviata, Paolo Albiani in Verdi’s Simon<br />

Boccanegra, Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni,<br />

Pietro de Wisants in Donizetti’s L’assedio di Calais,<br />

Marullo in Verdi’s Rigoletto and Count Gil in Wolf-<br />

Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret, in productions with Opera<br />

Theatre Company, Wide Open Opera, Cork Operatic<br />

Society, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English<br />

Touring Opera, Scottish Opera, Longborough Festival<br />

Opera, Iford Opera and Northern Ireland Opera. He<br />

has performed at many of the world’s leading venues<br />

including the Royal Albert Hall in London, Brooklyn<br />

Academy of Music in New York, the National Opera<br />

House, Wexford, Kennedy Center, Washington DC,<br />

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Stephansdom,<br />

Vienna, Kajetanerkirche, Salzburg, Grand Théâtre<br />

de la Ville de Luxembourg, Opéra de Lausanne,<br />

Westminster Cathedral, London, and the Hong Kong<br />

Cultural Centre.<br />

24<br />

25


BIOGRAPHIES<br />

KILKENNY<br />

ARTS FESTIVAL<br />

MAIRÉAD BUICKE<br />

SOPRANO<br />

DIE AUFSEHERIN<br />

THE OVERSEER<br />

Irish soprano Mairéad Buicke has<br />

performed major roles with English<br />

National Opera, Grange Park<br />

Opera, Opera Theatre Company<br />

and Mid Wales Opera. She has<br />

worked with the directors David<br />

Alden, Jonathan Miller, Robert Carsen and John<br />

Copley and the conductors Edward Gardner, Laurent<br />

Wagner, Stephen Barlow and Gerhard Markson,<br />

and has performed with the London Philharmonic<br />

Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra,<br />

RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Orchestra of St Cecilia,<br />

Ulster Orchestra, English National Opera Orchestra<br />

and English Northern Philharmonia. Her operatic<br />

repertoire includes Mimì and Musetta in Puccini’s La<br />

bohème, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, the title<br />

role in Puccini’s Tosca, Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen,<br />

Pamina and First Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute,<br />

Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, Sylviane in Lehár’s<br />

The Merry Widow, Paquette in Bernstein’s Candide,<br />

Karolka in Janáček’s Jenůfa, Second Niece in Britten’s<br />

Peter Grimes, Antonia in Offenbach’s Les Contes<br />

d’Hoffmann, Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola and<br />

Mařenka in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. In concert<br />

she has sung Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and<br />

Gretel and Second Niece in Britten’s Peter Grimes at<br />

the BBC Proms, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and<br />

Music from Egmont, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Handel’s<br />

Messiah, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and the<br />

title role in William Vincent Wallace’s opera Maritana<br />

to celebrate the 275th anniversary of the Royal Dublin<br />

Society. She has also sung as a soprano soloist with<br />

the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s<br />

Fourth and Eighth Symphonies, as well as in RTÉ’s<br />

eight-part television series, The Mozart Sessions.<br />

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA<br />

The Irish National Opera Orchestra is made up of leading<br />

freelance musicians based in Ireland. Members of the<br />

orchestra have a broad range of experience playing<br />

operatic, symphonic, chamber and new music repertoire.<br />

The orchestra plays for contemporary opera productions<br />

– Thomas Adès’s Powder her Face and Brian Irvine’s<br />

Least Like the Other – as well as chamber reductions of<br />

larger scores – Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann and<br />

Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. The orchestra, which<br />

appeared in its largest live formation to date in Rossini’s<br />

Cinderella/La Cenerentola. at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre<br />

in Dublin in 2019, numbered even more – 79 players –<br />

for the sessions to produce the soundtrack for <strong>Elektra</strong>.<br />

The Irish National Opera Orchestra has been heard in<br />

17 venues throughout Ireland.<br />

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA CHORUS<br />

Irish National Opera Chorus is a flexible ensemble of<br />

professional singers that has ranged in number from<br />

four, in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, to 60, in Verdi’s Aida.<br />

The chorus is a valuable training ground for many<br />

emerging singers and has been heard in venues large<br />

and small throughout Ireland as well as internationally.<br />

The membership is mostly drawn from singers based<br />

in Ireland. Members are frequently offered solo roles,<br />

and for <strong>INO</strong>’s touring production of Offenbach’s The<br />

Tales of Hoffmann most were also heard in a principal<br />

role. Membership of Irish National Opera’s chorus<br />

is often a springboard to greater involvement in the<br />

company’s productions. For larger works Irish National<br />

Opera collaborates with TU Dublin Conservatory of<br />

Music and Drama and the Royal Irish Academy of<br />

Music whose senior students are offered positions in<br />

the chorus, usually in tandem with specially devised<br />

professional development <strong>programme</strong>s for emerging<br />

singers. Over the course of the <strong>INO</strong>’s first two years,<br />

the company offered 200 chorus contracts to over 80<br />

individual singers.<br />

Festival Director<br />

Olga Barry<br />

Acting Marketing<br />

& Development Manager<br />

Pat Carey<br />

Festival Administrator<br />

Valerie Ryan<br />

Production Manager<br />

Aidan Wallace<br />

COVID Compliance Officer<br />

Rob Usher<br />

Programme Manager<br />

Lisa O’Brien<br />

Co-Producer<br />

Aisling O’Brien<br />

Box Office & Friends Manager<br />

Céline Reilly<br />

Assistant Box Office Manager<br />

Brian McCormack<br />

Development Officer<br />

Grace Kearney<br />

Artist Liaison<br />

Paula Fleming<br />

Programme Editor<br />

Alistair Daniel<br />

Strategic Consultant<br />

Annette Nugent<br />

Publicity<br />

O’Doherty Communications<br />

Graphic Design<br />

Íde Deloughrey<br />

Web Design<br />

Pixel Design<br />

Official IT Provider<br />

BITS<br />

Patron<br />

Michael D. Higgins<br />

President of Ireland<br />

Board of Directors<br />

Emer Foley (Chair)<br />

Brian Fennelly<br />

Lorelei Harris<br />

Conor Langton<br />

Mairéad Meagher<br />

Michael O’Toole<br />

Thomas O’Toole<br />

26<br />

27


BEING GISELLE ALLEN...<br />

Giselle Allen<br />

Photo by Glenn Norwood<br />

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE<br />

FIRST OPERA YOU WENT TO?<br />

Do you know, I actually did not go to an opera... I<br />

actually was in an opera, and that was the first time.<br />

And that was in university. We did Purcell’s Dido and<br />

Aeneas. Originally I was playing the Spirit. But the<br />

Belinda fell off the stage two days before we opened,<br />

and broke her ankle. When I think about it it was a<br />

bit mad. I had to quickly learn Belinda. I kind of knew<br />

the arias anyway, just from hearing her sing it. The<br />

night we did it in concert, my parents came over<br />

from Belfast. I remember getting to the end of it and<br />

when the last chorus started I just burst into tears. I<br />

was sobbing because the music was so beautiful. It<br />

was probably also relief that I got through the opera<br />

and all of that. But that chorus, With drooping wings,<br />

is so beautiful, Dido was dead... I felt so emotional.<br />

My dad said to my mum, She’s really crying! That<br />

was when I caught the bug. It was in my first year.<br />

That’s when I thought, wow, I love this artform.<br />

We would have gone to the odd classical Ulster<br />

Orchestra concert when I was young, but we never<br />

went to the opera. Probably because there wasn’t<br />

a lot of opera in the Seventies going on up here in<br />

Belfast.<br />

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM YOUR<br />

FIRST PROFESSIONAL APPEARANCE ON<br />

AN OPERA STAGE?<br />

Same thing. Just thinking, o my gosh, I’m out here in<br />

front of all these people... I was maybe 24 and, yes,<br />

we’d done things in college, but this was an outside<br />

gig, I suppose, even though it was still small. It was<br />

with Clonter Opera. We did Puccini’s La bohème<br />

and I sang Musetta. A fun role, a fun character for<br />

the first half, and then a serious character for the<br />

second half. I remember thinking, o my goodness,<br />

wow, am I going to do this for a living? Is this going<br />

to be my job? It was also nerve-wracking. It wasn’t<br />

like I was one of these singers who thought, o my<br />

god, I must be on the stage. It was nerve-wracking<br />

to start with, and once I was on I would totally get<br />

into character and my nerves go. Even to this day I<br />

think it’s amazing that I can do this job for a living.<br />

WHAT WAS THE BEST OPERA OR<br />

SINGING ADVICE YOU EVER GOT?<br />

From my coach, who passed away not long<br />

after my father passed away, Ludmilla Andrew,<br />

a Canadian soprano living in London. Mila said<br />

to me just always be truthful to yourself. Just<br />

remember that not everybody is going to like<br />

you – this is probably the best bit, actually –<br />

she would say not everybody is going to like<br />

what you do. Some people will love what you do<br />

and other people will hate it. You have to just<br />

know who you are yourself and kind of go, OK,<br />

he doesn’t like me, but she likes me. Especially<br />

where auditions and things are concerned.<br />

Just go in and do your best. It’s what I tell all<br />

my students and what I tell my daughter –<br />

you’ve done the work, you’ve done your best,<br />

and that’s all you can do. If someone doesn’t<br />

hire you, it’s not because you didn’t give of<br />

your best. Always know your stuff. Never go in<br />

unprepared.<br />

WHAT IS THE MOST ANNOYING<br />

MISCONCEPTION ABOUT OPERA?<br />

That it’s for the elite. It still has that kind of<br />

class system thing pinned to it. That we won’t<br />

understand it. It’s beyond us. It’s so not true.<br />

Most opera singers are normal people, like me – I<br />

come from a working-class background. If I invite<br />

people, I always try and invite them to something<br />

like a Bohème, where they can understand it’s a<br />

real emotional story. It’s a proper journey about<br />

emotions, and that they can relate to it. Falling in<br />

love with somebody, falling out with somebody.<br />

Life and death. Or Janáček’s Katya Kabanová, an<br />

unhappy woman in an unhappy marriage, meets<br />

somebody else, has an affair. They are all human<br />

emotions that people can understand.<br />

WHAT MOMENT DO YOU MOST LOOK<br />

FORWARD TO WHEN YOU GO TO A<br />

PERFORMANCE OF ELEKTRA?<br />

I suppose to me the most beautiful music is<br />

when <strong>Elektra</strong> discovers Orest is alive. She sings<br />

an aria to him and it’s the most beautiful music.<br />

It’s absolutely stunning. That moment is half way<br />

through and everything before has been so manic<br />

and then suddenly you get this really beautiful,<br />

lyrical, wonderful melody, and lush strings.<br />

WHAT IS THE MOST CHALLENGING<br />

ASPECT OF SINGING ELEKTRA?<br />

It’s not giving away too much too soon. Because<br />

it’s a long process, a long journey. There’s a lot of<br />

singing. You don’t get off stage at all. So you have<br />

29


Image: Giselle Allen as <strong>Elektra</strong><br />

Pre-production photo by Ruth Medjber<br />

to really pace yourself to not overblow emotionally<br />

at the beginning. If you do you’ll just not get to the<br />

end. I spoke to Sue Bulllock, the English soprano<br />

who’s sung <strong>Elektra</strong> 140 times or something crazy<br />

like that. I rang her, because she’s a friend, and<br />

asked her what are the tips. She just said you<br />

can’t give away too much. And when you can<br />

sing lyrically, you’ve got to sing lyrically. It’s not<br />

all power out, screaming your head off the whole<br />

time. You’ve got to pace it, vocally and emotionally.<br />

Because I am a very emotional singer.<br />

TELL ME ABOUT MANAGING CHANGE<br />

IN AN OPERA CAREER – IN THE<br />

VOICE, IN THE REPERTOIRE, IN THE<br />

PROFESSION’S PERCEPTION OF YOU<br />

It’s difficult. I think as a soprano, because the<br />

Fach system [the German system of categorising<br />

voices and allocating roles according to those<br />

categorisations] is difficult enough. But also there<br />

is ageism in our job. There is. You reach a certain<br />

age and it’s kind of like, well, you’re not this star<br />

any more, unless you have gone into different<br />

repertoire. But you have to go and sing all that<br />

new repertoire to people again. If you’re lucky<br />

enough like me to work at Opera North for 20<br />

years, they have always guided me really well, and<br />

they’ve always offered me the role the next step<br />

up, thankfully. But that doesn’t always happen.<br />

Companies that I don’t work for a lot I am now<br />

going to have to go and sing this new repertoire<br />

that I’m working on, which is this slightly heavier,<br />

dramatic soprano repertoire. They’ll look down my<br />

CV and maybe go, why is she singing that now, and<br />

we haven’t heard her sing that. You kind of have to<br />

go and prove yourself to new companies that this<br />

is the repertoire you sing. That’s just something<br />

you have to accept and get on with and go, OK, I’ll<br />

just go and sing some new things to you. The voice<br />

is constantly changing. When I had my daughter,<br />

my voice changed. Now, I’m 51 in a couple of<br />

months’ time, even though I don’t look that age<br />

on stage, people will be, like, no, if we’re casting<br />

Jenufa we need someone in their thirties. That<br />

has changed from years ago. When I first started<br />

covering at Opera North, I covered Vivian Tierney a<br />

lot, the British soprano, and she was singing Katya<br />

and she was nearly 50 then. It was fine then to be<br />

singing that role at that age. That was the norm.<br />

You didn’t expect young singers to be singing those<br />

really difficult, emotionally dramatic roles. Now<br />

it’s changed completely. There’s a lot of younger<br />

casting going on. I’ve been singing for 20 years,<br />

and I suddenly have to go out and almost re-sell<br />

myself – to some companies. You just have to get<br />

on with it and do it, and not feel, Ugh, why do I have<br />

to do this? If you want to work, you have to do it.<br />

IF YOU HADN’T BECOME AN OPERA<br />

SINGER, WHAT MIGHT YOU HAVE BECOME?<br />

I would have probably become a nurse. I would<br />

have been in a caring profession. I like looking<br />

after people. Probably that. I did want to<br />

specialise in music therapy, but I think I would<br />

have just done straight nursing.<br />

IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL DERVAN<br />

30<br />

27


ABL AVIATION OPERA STUDIO<br />

ABL Aviation, the international aviation investment company<br />

with offices in Dublin, New York, Casablanca, Dubai and<br />

Hong Kong, is the principal sponsor of Irish National Opera’s<br />

studio mentoring <strong>programme</strong>.<br />

Members of ABL Aviation Opera Studio are involved in all<br />

of Irish National Opera’s productions, large and small. They<br />

sing onstage in roles or in the chorus, understudy lead roles<br />

– enabling them to watch and emulate great artists at work –<br />

and, for non-singing members, they join in the world of opera<br />

rehearsals as assistants.<br />

Studio members also receive individual coaching, attend<br />

masterclasses and receive mentorship from leading Irish and<br />

international singers and musicians. Brenda Hurley, Head of<br />

Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, London, is the vocal<br />

consultant who guides our singers throughout the year. One<br />

of Ireland’s leading theatres, The Civic, Tallaght, works with<br />

the studio as a cultural partner, and the theatre’s artistic<br />

director, Michael Barker-Caven, is the studio’s stagecraft<br />

consultant.<br />

Other areas of specific attention are performance and<br />

language skills, and members are assisted in their individual<br />

personal musical development and given professional career<br />

guidance. They benefit from Irish National Opera’s national<br />

and international contacts and ABL Aviation Opera Studio<br />

also develops and promotes specially tailored events to help<br />

the members hone specific skills and showcase their work.<br />

For information contact Studio & Outreach Producer<br />

James Bingham at james@irishnationalopera.ie<br />

33


NEAR AND FAR, HIGH<br />

AND LOW<br />

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA IS FOR EVERYONE<br />

Opera is our passion. And we want to share that<br />

passion. Not just through live events in cities<br />

and towns, large and small, but also through<br />

educational initiatives in schools and colleges,<br />

and community activities that appeal to young<br />

and old alike.<br />

Photo: Pupils from Bennekerry<br />

Primary School giving an operatic<br />

blast in a Popera project with Irish<br />

National Opera, the Royal Irish<br />

Academy of Music, and Music<br />

Generation Carlow<br />

OPERA WHEREVER YOU ARE<br />

We take our productions to all corners of the land, from<br />

Dublin to Galway, Tralee to Letterkenny, Wexford to Sligo.<br />

And if you’re not able to come to us, we can come to you<br />

wherever you are in the world. Our digital platform, with many<br />

offerings that can be viewed for free, has won praise from the<br />

international media. And we will be launching exciting new<br />

online projects over the coming months.<br />

TRAILBLAZING DEVELOPMENTS<br />

IN THE COMMUNITY<br />

Our innovative virtual reality community opera, Out of<br />

the Ordinary, is already in full swing. It’s a voyage into the<br />

unknown and will place people from the communities involved<br />

directly at the heart of the creative process. The project is not<br />

just embracing new technologies and widening participation<br />

in the arts at a community level. It is also exploring the cutting<br />

edge relationship between opera and digital technology. We<br />

are working with our partners in The Civic, Tallaght, Conradh<br />

na Gaeilge and Music Generation Offaly/Westmeath to have<br />

the project ready for nationwide touring in 2022.<br />

ABL AVIATION OPERA STUDIO<br />

The professional development and employment of Irish artists are key to the success<br />

of Irish National Opera itself, and the ABL Aviation Opera Studio is our artistic development<br />

<strong>programme</strong>. It provides specially tailored training, professional mentoring and high-level<br />

professional engagements for a group of individuals – singers, répétiteurs, conductors,<br />

directors, composers – whose success will be key to the future development of<br />

opera in Ireland.<br />

IN FOCUS<br />

Our pre-performance In Focus talks aim to provide background to the works in our major<br />

productions. They delve into all aspects of opera, from the histories of specific works, the<br />

development of the characters and the issues facing performers and composers – where<br />

possible with the actual performers and composers themselves.<br />

INSPIRING MUSIC STUDENTS<br />

We work with third-level music students through workshops designed to give them a fuller<br />

understanding of the inner workings of the world of opera, that heady mixture of musical and<br />

theatrical skills that make possible the magic that is opera. Colleges and universities we have<br />

worked with include University College Dublin, National College of Art and Design, Maynooth<br />

University, NUI Galway, TU Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.<br />

34<br />

35


FOUNDERS CIRCLE<br />

Anonymous<br />

Desmond Barry & John Redmill<br />

Valerie Beatty & Dennis Jennings<br />

Mark & Nicola Beddy<br />

Carina & Ali Ben Lmadani<br />

Mary Brennan<br />

Angie Brown<br />

Breffni & Jean Byrne<br />

Jennifer Caldwell<br />

Seán Caldwell & Richard Caldwell<br />

Caroline Classon, in memoriam<br />

David Warren, Gorey<br />

Audrey Conlon<br />

Gerardine Connolly<br />

Jackie Connolly<br />

Gabrielle Croke<br />

Sarah Daniel<br />

Maureen de Forge<br />

Doreen Delahunty & Michael Moriarty<br />

Joseph Denny<br />

Kate Donaghy<br />

Marcus Dowling<br />

Mareta & Conor Doyle<br />

Noel Doyle & Brigid McManus<br />

Michael Duggan<br />

Catherine & William Earley<br />

Jim & Moira Flavin<br />

Ian & Jean Flitcroft<br />

Anne Fogarty<br />

Maire & Maurice Foley<br />

Roy & Aisling Foster<br />

Howard Gatiss<br />

Genesis<br />

Hugh & Mary Geoghegan<br />

Diarmuid Hegarty<br />

M Hely Hutchinson<br />

Gemma Hussey<br />

Kathy Hutton & David McGrath<br />

Nuala Johnson<br />

Susan Kiely<br />

Timothy King & Mary Canning<br />

J & N Kingston<br />

Kate & Ross Kingston<br />

Silvia & Jay Krehbiel<br />

Karlin Lillington & Chris Horn<br />

Stella Litchfield<br />

Jane Loughman<br />

Rev Bernárd Lynch & Billy Desmond<br />

Lyndon MacCann SC<br />

Phyllis Mac Namara<br />

Tony & Joan Manning<br />

R John McBratney<br />

Ruth McCarthy, in memoriam Niall<br />

& Barbara McCarthy<br />

Petria McDonnell<br />

Jim McKiernan<br />

Tyree & Jim McLeod<br />

Jean Moorhead<br />

Sara Moorhead<br />

Joe & Mary Murphy<br />

Ann Nolan & Paul Burns<br />

FX & Pat O’Brien<br />

James & Sylvia O’Connor<br />

John & Viola O’Connor<br />

Joseph O’Dea<br />

Dr J R O’Donnell<br />

Deirdre O’Donovan & Daniel Collins<br />

Diarmuid O’Dwyer<br />

Patricia O’Hara<br />

Annmaree O’Keefe & Chris Greene<br />

Carmel & Denis O’Sullivan<br />

Líosa O’Sullivan & Mandy Fogarty<br />

Hilary Pratt<br />

Sue Price<br />

Landmark Productions<br />

Riverdream Productions<br />

Nik Quaife & Emerson Bruns<br />

Margaret Quigley<br />

Patricia Reilly<br />

Dr Frances Ruane<br />

Catherine Santoro<br />

Dermot & Sue Scott<br />

Yvonne Shields<br />

Fergus Sheil Sr<br />

Gaby Smyth<br />

Matthew Patrick Smyth<br />

Bruce Stanley<br />

Sara Stewart<br />

The Wagner Society of Ireland<br />

Julian & Beryl Stracey<br />

Michael Wall & Simon Nugent<br />

Brian Walsh & Barry Doocey<br />

Judy Woodworth<br />

★★★★★<br />

“Vibrant, relevant<br />

and compelling”<br />

IRISH TIMES<br />

“stunning”<br />

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT<br />

BRIAN IRVINE & NETIA JONES<br />

LEAST LIKE THE OTHER<br />

SEARCHING FOR ROSEMARY KENNEDY<br />

SAT 11, TUE 14, WED 15, THU 16, FRI 17 & SAT 18 SEPT<br />

O’REILLY THEATRE BELVEDERE COLLEGE DUBLIN 1<br />

WED 22 SEPT<br />

CORK OPERA HOUSE CORK<br />

SAT 25 SEPT<br />

LIMETREE THEATRE LIMERICK<br />

Details on irishnationalopera.ie<br />

36


<strong>INO</strong> TEAM<br />

James Bingham<br />

Studio & Outreach Producer<br />

Sorcha Carroll<br />

Marketing Manager<br />

Aoife Daly<br />

Development Manager<br />

Diego Fasciati<br />

Executive Director<br />

Sarah Halpin<br />

Digital Communications<br />

Manager<br />

Cate Kelliher<br />

Business & Finance Manager<br />

Audrey Keogan<br />

Development Assistant<br />

Claire Lowney<br />

Marketing Executive<br />

Patricia Malpas<br />

Project Administrator<br />

Muireann Ní Dhubhghaill<br />

Artistic Administrator<br />

Gavin O’Sullivan<br />

Head of Production<br />

Fergus Sheil<br />

Artistic Director<br />

Paula Tierney<br />

Company Stage Manager<br />

Board of Directors<br />

Gaby Smyth (Chair)<br />

Jennifer Caldwell<br />

Tara Erraught<br />

Gerard Howlin<br />

Gary Joyce<br />

Stella Litchfield<br />

Sara Moorhead<br />

Joseph Murphy<br />

Ann Nolan<br />

Yvonne Shields<br />

Michael Wall<br />

Irish National Opera<br />

69 Dame Street<br />

Dublin 2 | Ireland<br />

T: 01–679 4962<br />

E: info@irishnationalopera.ie<br />

irishnationalopera.ie<br />

@irishnationalopera<br />

@irishnatopera<br />

@irishnationalopera<br />

Company Reg No.: 601853<br />

Registered Charity: 22403<br />

(RCN) 20204547<br />

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES<br />

THE LIGHTHOUSE<br />

ON TOUR SAT 20 NOVEMBER – SAT 11 DECEMBER<br />

AN TÁIN DUNDALK THE EVERYMAN CORK SIAMSA TÍRE TRALEE<br />

GLÓR ENNIS SOLSTICE ARTS CENTRE NAVAN<br />

O’REILLY THEATRE DUBLIN MERMAID ARTS CENTRE BRAY<br />

AN GRIANÁN LETTERKENNY<br />

Details on irishnationalopera.ie<br />

38


irishnationalopera.ie

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