Maria Stuarda Programme Book 2022

SINEAD MCKENNA
LIGHTING DESIGNER
ELAINE KELLY
CHORUS DIRECTOR
Sinéad McKenna has received two
Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards for
Best Lighting Design and a Drama
Desk nomination for Outstanding
Lighting Design for a Musical.
Previously for Irish National Opera,
she has designed Puccini’s La bohème at Bord Gáis
Energy Theatre, Vivaldi’s Griselda and Offenbach’s
The Tales of Hoffman. Her many other designs for
opera and music include Michael Gallen’s Elsewhere
(Abbey Theatre), Mozart’s Don Giovanni, The Magic
Flute and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Theatre
Company); Verdi’s La traviata (Malmö Opera);
Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (Irish Youth Opera) and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opera Ireland); Parade
(Théâtre du Châtelet), The Wizard of Oz and Prodijig
(Cork Opera House) and Angela’s Ashes: The Musical.
For theatre she recently designed the set and lighting
for Gabriel Byrne’s Walking With Ghosts and Mark
O’Rowe’s The Approach for Landmark Productions.
Other recent lighting designs include Faith Healer
for Abbey Theatre, Dēmos for Liz Roche Company
and Teenage Dick for Donmar Warehouse. Film
and TV credits include Grace Jones: Bloodlight and
Bami (Blinder Films), Bovinity (Tommy Tiernan) and
Fitting In (Des Bishop). She has worked extensively
with Landmark Productions, Druid Theatre, the
Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre, West Yorkshire
Playhouse, Dundee Rep, Cork Opera House, The
Everyman, Cork, Rough Magic, Cahoots, Coiscéim
Dance Theatre, Decadent Theatre, Gare St Lazare
Ireland, Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Fishamble, The Corn
Exchange, THISISPOPBABY, Siren Productions,
Second Age, The Performance Corporation, Semper
Fi and Gúna Nua.
Elaine Kelly is the Resident
Conductor of Irish National Opera.
Upon her appointment in late 2021,
she conducted a national tour
with Peter Maxwell Davies’s The
Lighthouse. She also conducted
nine new works by Irish composers in INO’s
internationally praised 20 Shots of Opera in 2020 as
well as the film of Amanda Feery’s A Thing I Cannot
Name which was streamed as part of the West Cork
Literary Festival in July 2021. She held the position of
Studio Conductor in INO’s ABL Aviation Opera Studio
from 2019–21, and worked as assistant conductor
and chorus director on performances of Rossini’s
La Cenerentola, Mozart’s The Abduction from the
Seraglio, Puccini’s La bohéme, Strauss’s Elektra,
Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s The First Child,
Beethoven’s Fidelio and Bizet’s Carmen, and films of
Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse and Gerald Barry’s
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. In March 2022
Elaine was invited to work as assistant conductor
on Opéra National de Bordeaux’s production of
Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. In 2014 she won the
inaugural ESB Feis Ceoil Orchestral Conducting
Competition which led to engagements with the
RTÉ Concert Orchestra. She was Musical Director
of the University of Limerick Orchestra (2019–21),
the Dublin Symphony Orchestra (2017–19) and
has worked with the National Symphony Orchestra,
Dublin Youth Orchestra and Cork Concert Orchestra.
Elaine is a BMus and MA graduate of the MTU Cork
School of Music.
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