Cosí fan tutte programme book 2023

INO ORCHESTRA & CHORUS
IRISH NATIONAL OPERA CHORUS
IRISH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA
The Irish National Opera Orchestra, which performs in
all of INO’s larger productions, is made up of leading
Irish freelance musicians. Members of the orchestra
have a broad range of experience playing operatic,
symphonic, chamber and new music repertoire. The
orchestra’s work includes Strauss’s Elektra in 2021
and Der Rosenkavalier in 2023 (“delivers all the
swelling romanticism and range of tone and colour
you could ask for,” Irish Examiner). It is equally at
home in music by Donizetti and Rossini (“wonderful
energy and musical vision,” Bachtrack in 2022 on
Rossini’s William Tell). The orchestra also performs
chamber reductions for touring productions including,
most recently, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (2022)
and Massenet’s Werther (2023). The orchestra’s
contemporary repertoire has included Thomas
Adès’s Powder Her Face (2018), Maxwell Davies’s
The Lighthouse (2021), and Brian Irvine and Netia
Jones’s Least Like The Other, Searching For Rosemary
Kennedy, in which it made its international debut
at the Royal Opera House in London in 2023. The
orchestra can be heard on the INO recording of
Puccini’s La bohème on Signum Classics.
The Irish National Opera Chorus is a flexible ensemble
of professional singers that has ranged in number
from four, in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, to 60, in
Verdi’s Aida. The chorus is a valuable training ground
for many emerging singers and has been heard in
venues large and small throughout Ireland as well
as internationally. The membership is mostly drawn
from singers based in Ireland. There is currently a
core of 16 singers who perform in all of the company’s
large-scale productions. In 2022 the chorus
appeared in Rossini’s William Tell, one of the most
chorally demanding operas, and in 2023 many of
the members also featured in solo roles in Strauss’s
Der Rosenkavalier; members were also heard in solo
roles in a touring production of Offenbach’s The Tales
of Hoffmann. The chorus has collaborated with TU
Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama and the
Royal Irish Academy of Music, with senior students
offered positions in the chorus, usually in tandem
with specially devised professional development
programmes for emerging singers.
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