INO_FAUST_2023_programme

CHARLES GOUNOD 1818–93 

FAUST 

1859 

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA 

PRINCIPAL FUNDER 

OPÉRA 

Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré after Carré’s Faust et Marguerite and 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust Part I, in the translation by Gérard de Nerval. 

First performance, Théatre Lyrique, Paris, March 1859 (with spoken dialogue); 

Opéra de Strasbourg, 28 February 1860 (with recitatives); Opéra, Paris, 

3 March 1869 (with added ballet music). 

First Irish performance, Theatre Royal, Dublin, 1 October 1863 (in Italian). 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Special thanks to the Abbey Theatre, Druid Theatre, 

Gate Theatre and Artane School of Music. 

We are grateful to William Earley for supporting the Explore 

and Sing Faust Initiative. 

SUNG IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES 

Performance edition by Paul Prévost (L’Opéra français) © Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, 

Basel, London, New York, Prague. By arrangement with Faber Music, London 

Running time 3 hours and 20 minutes including 1 interval after Act III. 

The performances on Tuesday 3 and Thursday 5 October are being recorded for 

future broadcast by RTÉ lyric fm. 

PERFORMANCES 2023 

Sunday 1 October Gaiety Theatre Dublin 

Tuesday 3 October Gaiety Theatre Dublin 

Thursday 5 October Gaiety Theatre Dublin 

Saturday 7 October Gaiety Theatre Dublin 

#INOfaust 

03

THE DEVIL HOLDS SWAY 

FERGUS SHEIL 

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 

A lot of extreme things happen in opera. Plots can be outlandish, 

situations unexpected, and passions inflated. Characters fall in 

love as quickly as in a Hollywood romcom, and betray each other 

with the alacrity of a Mafia crew under the spell of a new boss. 

A lot of people end up dead – through violence (Carmen and 

Gilda), consumption (Mimì and Violetta), suicide (Cio-Cio-San, 

Tosca), madness (Lucia) or transfiguration (Isolde). Two of the 

most extraordinary operatic deaths are in Les contes d’Hoffmann, 

where Antonia literally sings herself to an early grave, and Elektra, 

where the eponymous heroine dances herself to death, in ecstasy 

at having arranged her mother’s beheading. Men die, too: Lensky, 

Cavaradossi, Scarpia, Macbeth, Jochanaan, Don Giovanni, Tristan 

... I could keep going. 

The longer you’ve lived, the more fully you will identify with 

the character of Faust. Money, success and power mean little 

to him. What he wants is to relive the experience of youth and 

make different life choices the second time around. Can there be 

anyone who doesn’t wonder about how things might have turned 

out if they had behaved differently? Faust is someone who gets the 

chance to take that different fork in the road. 

And Faust is not the only character in the opera experiencing a 

heightened emotional trajectory. There’s Marguerite’s path from 

rags to riches, her innocence and her fall from grace. There’s 

Siébel’s unrequited love. Towering over everything, however is 

Méphistophélès – the devil himself – who is conjured up by Faust 

near the start of the opera. He dominates proceedings with his 

superhuman personality, storytelling, magnetism, charm, style 

and danger. 

The opera is called Faust, but Méphistophélès is really the 

central character. He is the one who makes things happen, who 

propels everything forward. I see him as a kind of parallel to Donald Trump today. He has a big 

character. He cannot be ignored. He likes the sound of his own voice. He makes unrealistic 

promises but somehow manages to make them sound plausible. You know you shouldn’t pay 

him any attention. But you can’t help yourself. He promises danger. But you like it. Ultimately, 

everybody who comes into contact with him is damaged, chewed-up and spat out. 

For me Faust is one of the most spectacular of all operas. It’s as if Gounod went into the 

sweet-shop of operatic plots and characters and ordered one of everything. The music is not 

complicated – some find it too un-sophisticated – but I love its freshness and honesty and its 

directness in being both entertaining and deeply moving. 

I’m thrilled to be bringing this opera to the stage with such a formidable cast. We are excited 

to welcome back Jennifer Davis as Marguerite – Jennifer has taken many of the world’s major 

opera stages by storm in recent years. She appears in tonight’s cast beside one of her singing 

teachers Colette McGahon in the role of Marthe. Colette makes her INO debut, but is no 

stranger to the Gaiety stage, where she sang Siébel in Faust for the Dublin Grand Opera Society 

in 1980. Tonight’s Siébel is one of INO’s favourite mezzo-sopranos Gemma Ní Bhriain. Gemma 

is also taking a leading role for INO in Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade next May and June, on tour in 

Ireland, London and Fribourg in Switzerland. 

I’m particularly excited to bring two outstanding singers to Dublin for the first time. Seoul-born 

tenor Duke Kim stars in the title role and American bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee is our 

devilishly seductive Méphistophélès. Gyula Nagy brings his glowing baritone to Valentin and 

British baritone Mark Nathan sings Valentin’s friend Wagner. 

I also want to extend a warm welcome to our creative team. INO resident conductor Elaine Kelly 

takes charge musically. British director Jack Furness stages the opera alongside choreographer 

David Bolger. Jack and David are with INO for the first time. I also warmly welcome back our 

designer Francis O’Connor whose work we most recently saw in Beethoven’s Fidelio in 2021 

and lighting designer Sarah Jane Shiels, who gave us a beautifully lit production of Massenet’s 

Werther earlier this year. 

I hope you will be swept away by the experience. 

04 05

ALL ROADS LEAD TO PARIS 

DIEGO FASCIATI 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 

Welcome to Irish National Opera’s exciting 2023–24 season, 

with its distinct French flavour. Gounod’s Faust is one of the most 

popular French romantic operas, period. Puccini’s La bohème and 

Verdi’s La traviata are based on French texts and are both set in 

Paris. Richard Strauss’s Salome was a huge success in 1905, and 

would carry the composer’s name around the international world 

of opera. The libretto is based on Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play, which 

was originally written in French. Strauss would later work with 

Romain Rolland to create a French language version that retained 

as much of Wilde’s text as the two men found possible. And the 

season’s only purely Italian interloper, Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade, has its 

opening night just before the start of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. 

The Faust myth originated in 16th-century western Europe in 

the form of folk tales based on one or more individuals who 

dabbled in black magic, alchemy and necromancy. Early printed 

versions of the Faustian pact were presented as “histories” and 

even “manuals”on how to avoid or break inadvertent deals with 

the devil. The Faust legend soon became a fertile subject for 

playwrights, poets and novelists. Notable literary works based on 

the Faust figure include the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher 

Marlowe, premiered circa 1594 and turned into a 1967 film 

directed by Richard Burton and Neville Coghill, with Burton in the 

title role. Heinrich Heine wrote his dance poem, Der Doktor Faust, 

in 1851. Thomas Mann’s novel, Doktor Faustus, about a fictitious 

composer, Adrian Leverkühn, was published in 1947. 

But the foremost literary work based on the myth is Johann Wolfgang 

von Goethe’s verse play Faust, Parts I and II. Goethe (1749–1832) 

began early sketches of what would become his chef d’œuvre in 1772 

and continued composing, reworking and re-editing this work until 

the end of his life. The definitive version was published posthumously. 

Goethe’s Faust has inspired countless musical settings including 

La damnation de Faust by Berlioz, Mefistofele by Boito and the song 

Gretchen am Spinnrade by Schubert. And of course, it formed the basis 

of the libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré for the most famous 

of the operatic settings, by Charles Gounod. 

Goethe infused his Faust with the sensibilities and preoccupations 

of the Age of Enlightenment. In his version, Faust makes a pact with 

the devil not in exchange for riches or power but in order to regain his 

youth so that he may seduce a young woman. The figure of Margarete/ 

Gretchen was invented by Goethe but influenced by real events. While 

still an apprentice lawyer, he witnessed the public execution of Susanna 

Margaretha Brandt, who was accused and convicted of infanticide. 

Goethe was familiar with the legal aspects and context of this case 

and understood the inherent injustice of a woman who had been 

abandoned by a man and was then judged by a group of men in a 

patriarchal structure. This gruesome episode inspired him to create 

the character of Gretchen who, though she commits an atrocious crime, 

commands the sympathy of the audience and, in the end – spoiler 

alert! – finds divine salvation. 

Gounod and his librettists focussed their attention on the first part of 

Goethe’s play. The second part ends on a more positive or perhaps 

philosophical note. The aged Faust recognises the value of life and 

exclaims “then I may say to the fleeting moment: stay awhile, you are 

so beautiful.” As we might say in today’s language, he recognises the 

importance of living in the moment. 

I hope you enjoy our production of Faust. The creative team have 

meticulously conjured up a world that explores and exposes the 

power structures that allow the tragedy to unfold. Gounod’s music 

perfectly captures and evokes the characters and dramatic moments, 

culminating in the famous final trio, the resolution of the Faust/ 

Méphistophélès/Marguerite triangle. 

06 

07

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08 

07

DIRECTOR’S NOTE 

JACK FURNESS 

DIRECTOR GOUNOD’S 


Faust is a complex and multi-layered work which draws on a 

rich literary history. Rather than laying out an essay about the 

piece, my aim with any production is to tell the story clearly and 

powerfully while exploring the thematic material deeply. So I 

thought I’d pull out some of the most interesting or important lines 

from the piece and share aspects of the conversation that have 

been happening between myself, Francis O’Connor (designer), 

David Bolger (choreographer), Sarah-Jane Shiels (lighting 

designer), and John Anthony King (assistant director) while 

we’ve been making the show. 

Je veux un trésor qui les contient tous: 

Je veux la jeunesse! 

I want a treasure that contains all of them: 

I want youth! 

A lot of our discussion and exploration in rehearsal has been 

focused on the central mystery at the heart of the piece - what 

would it mean to become young again? The more you think about 

it, the stranger the idea becomes. When Méphistophélès grants 

Faust’s wish and transforms him into a young man, he doesn’t 

seem to act like an older person in a young man’s body. Instead, 

he becomes truly young, with all of the recklessness that it entails. 

Faust’s journey is to be doomed to age a second time, as he 

discovers that actions have consequences, and some things can 

never be taken back. 

For me, this concern with transformation, with our true nature, 

with choice and consequence links Gounod’s Faust (1859–69) 

with The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and The 

Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). Ultimately we liked the idea that 

rather than descending to hell, Faust’s choices lead him to create 

hell on earth – a preoccupation of numerous commentators in the 

latter half of the 19th century such as John Ruskin. To deepen this 

we’ve hugely enjoyed exploring Humphrey Jennings’s amazing 

book Pandaemonium: The Coming of the Machine as seen by 

Contemporary Observers. 

Je ne trouvais pas d’outrage assez fort jadis pour les péchés des autres; 

Le jour vient où l’on est sans pitié pour les nôtres. 

I could not find outrage strong enough in the past for the sins of others; 

The day comes when one is without pity for one’s own. 

The first thing that struck me about Charles Gounod’s version 

of Faust is the extraordinary compassion of the piece. This is 

particularly true in the case of the central character of Marguerite, 

who is seduced, excluded by society, and then ultimately driven 

to murder and madness. In my view, while the piece embraces 

a deeply Christian sense of charity and forgiveness towards the 

unfortunate, it also can be seen as a howl of rage against false piety 

and the societal structures that allow figures like Marguerite to be 

exploited, victimised, and morally degraded. 

My team and I were keen that this societal critique be brought 

fully to life on the stage. This has seemed to find its expression 

in the representation of class difference and the resulting power 

differentials. It’s worth noting that Charles Gounod was about a month 

and a half younger than Karl Marx. When Marguerite is enchanted by 

the box of jewels in Act III, it’s not about vanity– it’s about a young girl 

who lives in poverty encountering wealth beyond her wildest dreams. 

Gounod’s Faust offers us a chance to consider how useful restrictive 

morality might be for preventing harm to the vulnerable. 

10 

11

Rien! En vain j’interroge, en mon ardente veille, 

Le nature et la Créateur. 

Pas une voix ne glisse à mon oreille 

un mot consolateur. 

Nothing! In vain I examine, in my burning vigil, 

Nature and the Creator. 

Not a single voice whispers in my ear 

a consoling word. 

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Gounod’s Faust is concerned with a profound crisis of faith. This is clear 

in Faust’s first words, which reminded me of the questions and doubts 

which plagued 19th-century men of science such as Charles Darwin, 

who saw their faith come into dispute with their scientific discoveries. 

Another good example is the chemist and inventor of dynamite, Alfred 

Nobel, who read his own obituary when a newspaper accidentally 

published it. He was horrified by the reality of his life’s work and set 

up the Nobel Prizes in response. For Francis O’Connor and I, we had 

to set the piece in a context in which this crisis of faith would make 

sense. Every character is touched by it, and they live in a reality in which 

Christianity is all-important. This led us naturally to the latter half of the 

nineteenth century, in which the certainties of old-world Christianity 

came under sustained philosophical, scientific, and industrial attack. 

Est-ce un rêve charmant qui m’éblouit, ou si je veille? 

Is it a charming dream that dazzles me, or am I awake? 

Intoxication is a major preoccupation of the opera. This begins as 

a desire for the intoxication of youth and pleasure, but grows into a 

full examination into the limits of sanity. The idea of hallucination, 

intoxication, drunkenness, madness is repeatedly insisted upon in large 

and small ways throughout. For me this connects to the basic existential 

and social concerns of the piece. When I really think about it, I find it 

hard to say who is madder, Faust or Marguerite. 

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14 

13

GOUNOD 

ON GOUNOD’S 


Charles Gounod (1818–93) first read 

Goethe’s Faust (in French, as he freely 

admitted) when he was in Italy as winner 

of the Prix de Rome. It was there he had 

his first vision of the Walpurgis Night 

for the opera he would write, and he 

said he carried a copy of Goethe’s play 

“everywhere,” and made “scattered 

notes” of ideas he might use “some day 

when I should attempt this subject as an 

opera.” That day took 17 years to arrive. 

He recounted it in his Autobiography. 

In 1856 I made the acquaintance of Jules 

Barbier and Michel Carré. I suggested to them to 

collaborate with me, and trust me with a libretto. 

They agreed to do so in a very friendly way. The 

first subject I put forward for collaboration was 

Faust. The idea pleased them both. We went to 

see Monsieur Carvalho, at that time Director of the 

Théâtre Lyrique, in the Boulevard du Temple. He 

had just brought out Victor Massé’s Reine Topaze, 

in which Madame Miolan-Carvalho had achieved 

a striking success. Monsieur Carvalho approved 

of our notion, and my two friends set to work at 

once. I had myself done about half my share of the 

work, when Monsieur Carvalho suddenly informed 

me that the Théâtre de la Porte Saint Martin was on the point of bringing out 

a melodrama under the name of Faust, and that this fact completely upset his 

calculations with regard to our work. He rightly thought we should never be ready 

before the Porte Saint Martin, and even so, it would be imprudent to enter into 

competition with a theatre whose well-known splendour as to mise-en-scène 

would draw half Paris just before our piece appeared. 

He therefore begged us to choose some other subject, but this sudden upset 

made it impossible for me to turn my thoughts into another channel, and for 

more than a week I was unable to do any work at all. 

“Gounod’s influence has been potent 

and far-reaching. It starts with his 

proteges Saint-Saëns and Bizet, then 

continues by way of Massenet, who 

exploited it vigorously. It extends over 

the years to Debussy’s Pelléas et 

Mélisande and is given a concluding 

polish by Fauré. There is, as somebody 

once observed, a Gounod slumbering 

in the soul of every French musician.” 

JAMES HARDING, IN GOUNOD (1973) 

At last Monsieur Carvalho asked me to write 

a comic opera, and to take my subject from 

Molière. This was the origin of the Le Médecin 

malgré lui which was produced at the Théâtre 

Lyrique on January 15, 1858, the anniversary of 

Molière’s birth. 

The announcement of a comic opera from the 

pen of a musician whose former ventures had 

been in such a different style seemed to bode 

disappointment. But these fears (some of them 

were hopes perhaps?) were not justified by the 

event, for the Médecin malgré lui was, malgré 

cela, my first really successful opera. 

But all my delight was shattered by the death of my poor mother. She had been ill for 

some months, and completely blind for two years previously. She died on January 16, 

1858, the very day after the first performance, aged seventy-seven years and a half. 

Fate did not permit me to brighten her last days with the fruit of my labour, and the 

just recompense of the life she had so unceasingly devoted to her children and their 

future. I can only hope that before she left us she knew and foresaw that her struggle 

had not been in vain, and that her self-sacrifice had brought a great reward. 

Charles Gounod in 1859 

16 

15

Cover of the vocal score 

of Gounod’s Faust 

The Médecin malgré lui had 

an uninterrupted run of a 

hundred nights. The work was 

staged with the greatest care. 

Monsieur Got, of the Comédie 

Française, was good enough, 

at the request of the Director, 

to bestow his invaluable 

advice as to the traditional 

mounting of the piece and the 

declamation of the spoken 

dialogue. The chief part, that 

of Sganarelle, was played by 

the baritone Meillet, whose 

voice was full and round, and 

his play spirited. He made a 

great success both as a singer 

and an actor. The other male 

parts were taken by Girardot, 

Wartel, Fromant, and Lesage 

(the two latter afterwards replaced by Patel and Gabriel), and all 

in the very best manner. The two principal ladies’ parts were held 

by Mesdemoiselles Faivre and Girard, both of them full of life and 

animation. 

This score, the first comic work I ever did, is in a light and easy style 

which savours of the Italian opéra-bouffe. I have endeavoured to 

recall the style of Lully in certain passages, but the work as a whole 

keeps to the modern forms, and belongs to the French school. Among 

the numbers which most took the public taste were the Chanson des 

Glouglous, excellently sung by Meillet, and invariably encored; the Trio 

de la Bastonnade, the Sextuor de la Consultation, a Fabliau, the Scène 

de Consultation des Paysans, and a duet for Sganarelle and the nurse. 

“Expressiveness was always his ideal: 

that is why there are so few notes in 

his music... each note sings. For the 

same reason instrumental music, 

‘pure’ music, was never his forte. 

His aim in orchestration was to 

discover beautiful colour and, far 

from adopting ready-made the 

methods of the great masters, he 

applied himself to the study of 

timbres and tried to invent new 

The Porte-Saint-Martin Faust had just been brought out; but all its 

magnificent staging did not ensure the melodrama a very long run. 

Monsieur Carvalho consequently reverted to our former plan, and 

I at once set to work upon the opera which I had laid aside to write 

the Médecin. 

My Faust was first put into rehearsal in 

September 1858. Before I left Paris for 

Switzerland, where I was to spend the holidays 

with my wife and son, then two years old, I had 

gone through the work with Monsieur Carvalho 

in the Foyer of his theatre. At that time nothing 

had been settled as to the cast, and Monsieur 

Carvalho had asked my leave to bring his wife, 

who lived opposite the theatre, to hear me play 

over the work. She was so struck with the rôle 

of Marguerite, that Monsieur Carvalho begged 

me to let her sing it. I was naturally only too 

delighted, and the result proved my decision to 

have been something like an inspiration. 

combinations suited to his 

All the same, the rehearsals of Faust were not 

own ends.” 

fated to pursue “the even tenor of their way” 

without many checks and difficulties. The 

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS, IN PORTRAITS 

AND SOUVENIRS (1900) 

tenor who was to have played Faust, although 

gifted with a beautiful voice and a handsome 

presence, turned out not to be equal to so heavy 

a part. A short time before the date fixed for the first performance, it 

became necessary to find some one to take his place; and the part 

was offered to Monsieur Barbot, who happened to be disengaged. 

Within a month Barbot had mastered it and was ready to perform. 

So the opera was acted for the first time on March 19th 1859. 

16 

17

Caroline Miolan-Carvalho 

as Marguerite. 

Though Faust did not strike the public very much at 

first, it is the greatest theatrical success I have ever had. 

Do I mean that it is the best thing I have written? That I 

cannot tell. I can only reiterate the opinion I have already 

expressed, that success is more the result of a certain 

concatenation of favourable elements and successful 

conditions, than a proof and criterion of the intrinsic value 

of a work. Public favour is attracted in the first instance 

by outward appearances; all inward and solid qualities 

can do is to retain and strengthen it. It takes some time 

to grasp and absorb the innumerable details which go to 

make up a drama. 

Dramatic art is a branch of the art of portraiture; its 

function is to delineate character, as that of the painter is 

to present feature and attitude. Every lineament, all those 

momentary and fleeting inflections which constitute that 

individual physiognomy known as a “personality,” must 

be grasped and reproduced. Shakespeare ’s immortal 

figures of Hamlet, Richard III, Othello, and Lady Macbeth 

are so true to the type which each expresses, that they 

hold a real and living place in every mind. Well may they 

be called “creations.” 

“both Fauré and Chabrier... used the work of 

this master as a point of departure. At their 

sides, Bizet, Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, 

followed by Claude Debussy, participated 

in varying degrees in the salubrious 

influence of the composer of Mireille.” 

MAURICE RAVEL, 1922 

Dramatic music is ruled by 

the same laws, and cannot 

otherwise exist. Its object, 

too, is to portray feature; 

but where painting 

conveys an impression at 

a glance, music has to tell 

its story by degrees, and 

thus often fails to produce 

“The censors were disturbed by 

scenes that might adversely excite 

local church authorities or, worse, 

cause a diplomatic row with the Papal 

States. Siébel’s recourse to holy water 

to revive a withered daisy in Act III 

(‘Si je trempais mes doigts dans l’eau 

bénite’) and the entire cathedral 

tableau were deemed hazardous. 

Gounod’s contacts in the church 

served him well in this instance. The 

Papal Nuncio in Paris, a friend of the 

composer, appeased the censors 

the intended effect at a first hearing. None of 

my previous works could have led the world 

to expect anything like Faust from me; it was 

a surprise to the public, both as to style and 

interpretation. 

Of course the part of Marguerite was not the 

first in which Madame Carvalho had found 

scope for that marvellous style and power of 

execution which have set her in the highest 

place among contemporary singers; but 

no previous rôle had given her so fine an 

opportunity of displaying the lyric and pathetic 

side of her gifts. Her Marguerite made her 

reputation in this respect, and will always be 

one of the glories of her brilliant career. 

Barbot sang the difficult part of Faust like the 

by declaring that there was nothing 

great musician he is. Balanque, who created 

objectionable in the work.” 

the part of Méphistophélès, was a clever 

STEVEN HUEBNER, IN THE OPERAS OF CHARLES actor, whose gesture, appearance, and voice 

GOUNOD (1990) 

admirably suited that weird and diabolical 

personage. Although he somewhat overacted 

the part, he made a great success. The 

smaller parts of Siébel and Valentine were very creditably performed by 

Mademoiselle Faivre and Monsieur Raynal. 

As to the score itself, it raised such a whirl wind of debate and criticism, 

that my hopes of a real success grew faint indeed. 

18 

19

SYNOPSIS 

ACT I 

Dejected and disillusioned with how he 

has spent his life, old Faust resolves to 

die by drinking poison. Cursing God and 

Nature, he cries out to the Devil, who 

appears before him in the form of the 

demon Méphistophélès. Méphistophélès 

offers him gold, glory and power; Faust 

responds that his true desire contains them 

all. Faust wishes for youth. Méphistophélès 

can grant Faust’s wish, but in exchange for 

Méphistophélès’s services on earth, Faust 

must later act as Méphistophélès’s servant in 

hell. Méphistophélès draws up a contract and 

when Faust falters, Méphistophélès conjures 

a vision of a young woman, Marguerite. Faust 

is transfixed, and signs the contract. Upon 

drinking a potion, he is transformed into a 

young man. 

. 

ACT II 

Marguerite’s brother, Valentin, is leaving 

for war. He confesses his fears for his 

sister, who will have no one to watch over 

her in his absence, as their mother has 

died. His comrade, Wagner, leads the men 

in a drinking song, but is interrupted by 

Méphistophélès, who has a song of his own 

to share. He reads the fortunes of the men, 

telling Wagner that he will be killed while 

mounting an assault, and the young Siébel 

that he will be cursed to have flowers wither 

at his touch. When Méphistophélès angers 

Valentin by repeatedly mentioning Marguerite, 

the soldier draws his sword, only to have it 

break, as if by magic, in his hands. Valentin 

holds the pieces of the blade together to form 

a cross, with which he holds the demon at bay. 

Méphistophélès leads Faust to Marguerite. 

They have a brief encounter. He offers her his 

arm, which she shyly refuses. 

ACT III 

Siébel tries to leave flowers for Marguerite, 

with whom he is besotted, only to find that 

Méphistophélès’ prophecy has come true: 

they wither in his hands. He overcomes the 

curse by dipping his hands in holy water. 

Seeing the flowers, Méphistophélès upstages 

Siébel’s gift with a gift of his own for Faust to 

give her: a jewellery box containing treasures 

beyond anything Marguerite has seen in her 

dreams. When Marguerite discovers the box 

she puts on the jewellery and is entranced 

by her own appearance. Delighted that the 

seduction has worked, Méphistophélès 

flirts with Marguerite’s confidant Marthe, 

distracting her so that Faust can gain access 

to Marguerite. She is reticent at first, but 

when Méphistophélès conjures up a flower 

garden for her, she is overwhelmed and gives 

in to Faust’s advances. 

ACT IV 

Months have passed. Marguerite has become 

pregnant, given birth, and been abandoned 

by Faust. Sad and alone with the baby, she 

is visited by Siébel who remains loyal to her, 

unlike the others in her circle. Siébel insists 

that he now loves her only as a friend. She 

goes to the church to pray for her baby. 

Once there, Méphistophélès and a chorus 

of demons intervene and tell her she is 

destined for hell. She collapses in terror. 

Meanwhile, the surviving soldiers return from 

war. Wagner has been killed, as predicted. 

Valentin arrives home and encounters a 

worried Siébel outside Marguerite’s house. 

He enters, and discovers his sister’s baby. 

Against Méphitophélès’ advice, Faust has 

returned to the house, hoping to reunite 

with Marguerite, wracked with guilt for 

abandoning her. The demon perverts this 

by singing a grotesque serenade. Valentin 

comes outside and challenges Faust to a 

duel. With Méphistophélès’s intervention, 

Faust mortally wounds Valentin. Marguerite 

returns from the church to discover her 

brother dying in the street. With his final 

words, he rejects and curses his sister. 

ACT V 

Méphistophélès introduces Faust to 

Walpurgis Night – the witches’ sabbath 

– and shows him a nightmarish tableau. 

Summoning the “Queens and Courtesans of 

Antiquity,” Méphistophélès encourages Faust 

to seek solace in the oblivion of ecstasy. 

Just as Faust is succumbing, he sees a 

vision of Marguerite, jolting him out of his 

stupor. He rushes to a prison where she is 

being held for the crime of infanticide. She 

is very unwell, her mind having been broken 

by grief and shame. Stealing the keys from 

the jailor, Méphistophélès gains access 

to the cell for Faust. Despite her mental 

state, she recognises Faust and recalls their 

first meetings, but becomes distressed 

when she sees Méphistophélès. She dies. 

Méphistophélès condemns her soul to hell, 

but a heavenly choir declares that she has 

been saved. Alone with Méphistophélès and 

forced to face the consequences of all he has 

done, Faust awaits hell. 

20 

21

BEING COLETTE McGAHON... 

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE 

FIRST OPERA YOU WENT TO? 

Pretty well nothing. Actually, I don’t even 

remember what that might have been. As you 

know, I was brought up in Dundalk. So we didn’t 

have very much opera, if any, in fact. School 

was where I would have been exposed to it. We 

did Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl. We did Menotti’s 

Amahl and the Night Visitors, actually, now that 

you make me think about it. I sang the Mother. 

That was participating rather than going to it. 

Dundalk had a very strong musical society 

history. So, certainly, as a young person growing 

up, it was more through musicals and school 

that I would have been exposed to opera. Not 

until I joined the ranks of the Ronnie Dunners 

[pupils of Veronica Dunne] did I become 

exposed to any “proper” opera. When people 

talk to me about opera, I always have to admit 

that I’m not a really good opera goer. I’m more 

of a doer. Going to it never really floated my 

boat. I prefer to go to the theatre, unless I had 

some real good reason for going to see the 

opera. That’s usually a sort of research kind of 

process. Which once again doesn’t really put 

me into the class of opera-goer person, because 

I always have an agenda when I’m going. 

The first musical I went to was probably 

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in 

Dundalk. I think I turned pages for the nun 

who was playing the piano in the orchestra. 

I remember most of all missing most page 

turns, because I was so absolutely fascinated 

by what was going on on the stage. I had a 

kind of a birds-eye view, right up into the 

stage. I do remember that very well. Because 

the nun was my music teacher in the Louis 

Convent in Dundalk. 

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE 

FIRST OPERA YOU PERFORMED IN? 

Interestingly, I’ve realised that I sang in 

Faust in Dublin in 1980, for the Dublin Grand 

Opera Society. I actually thought it was 1982, 

because I knew I was at Guildhall at the time. 

And I went to Guildhall in the September 

of 1980, and this was the winter season 

in December. I sang Siébel. My score still 

has all my markings. It’s been quite sweet, 

not having been on the operatic stage for a 

significantly long time. It’s been nice to revisit 

this particular opera, which I absolutely love. 

I do remember that my flowers were like 

brightly-coloured perspex. I remember the 

whole production being a bit wacky. I don’t 

know if it really was, but that was how I felt 

about it at the time. It was a French couple 

directing [Denis and Marcel Feru], husband 

and wife. I do remember gathering up a lot 

of brightly-coloured perspex flowers as a I 

sang my aria. And I remember going and 

discussing my fee with Colonel O’Kelly, as 

well, in a little office at the back of some 

church up in Thomas Street, or somewhere 

like that. Which was probably the scariest! 

And I had done smaller parts in Charpentier’s 

Louise for DGOS and Luigi and Federico 

Ricci’s Crispino e la comare at Wexford. 

WHAT WAS THE BEST OPERA-RELATED 

ADVICE YOU EVER GOT? 

I think it would be purely vocal. Just always 

this notion of singing within your own 

capabilities of the moment. Whether it’s 

Wagner or Mozart. It has to be not what you 

think it should sound like, necessarily, but 

what you are really comfortable with and 

capable of doing at that moment in time. 

It’s advice that I would have passed on over 

the years, as well. I think there’s an awful lot 

of mishaps can happen when you’re trying 

to fit vocally into a genre that you somehow 

perceive to be a certain way, and you just risk 

overstepping the mark. I always, maybe from 

having had a lot of very good coaching, have 

been inclined to...maybe somebody told me, 

there’s not that much difference between 

singing art-song and singing opera, really. I 

like to think. 

16 

23

WHAT IS THE MOST ANNOYING 

MISCONCEPTION ABOUT OPERA? 

I used to think it was the old hackneyed, “Oh 

it’s elitist. Blah, blah, blah.” Which we have 

heard a million times. As I’ve got older, and 

as I’ve moved over to the dark side, and I’ve 

been involved in Opera Collective Ireland [as 

artistic director and CEO] I am beginning to 

think that I don’t really have much time for 

opera that isn’t in the vernacular. And I’ve 

begun to think how utterly snobbish it is in 

countries where we don’t speak a word of 

any foreign language to imagine that people 

are ever going to...I suppose I’m going back 

slightly to the days before surtitles came 

along and they have helped for sure. But it’s 

not for me the absolute answer. I’ve begun to 

think that this also goes for art-songs. There 

would be so much more to be had. And I’m 

sure Mozart, Wagner, Gounod didn’t really 

write this stuff with a view to people not 

understanding what was going on on a wordfor-word, 

immediate basis. 

WHAT MOMENT DO YOU MOST LOOK 

FORWARD TO WHEN YOU GO TO A 

PERFORMANCE OF FAUST? 

When I go to a performance of Faust? I’ve 

never been to a performance of Faust. I’ve 

never seen Faust. I would listen to recordings 

of operas. So, for me, the most beautiful 

moment in Faust is Valentin’s ‘Avant de 

quitter ces lieux,’ which to me is one of the 

most glorious pieces of music ever written. 

Wonderful! And I would look forward to that 

every single night. 

WHAT’S THE MOST CHALLENGING 

ASPECT OF PERFORMING MARTHE 

SCHWERLEIN IN FAUST? 

She’s probably one of the only characters 

who has a bit of humour. She creates a little 

bit of banter and a little bit of... something. 

I don’t think there’s that much humour in 

Faust, all in all, or intentional, anyway. For 

somebody like me, it’s a role that’s not too 

small. It’s certainly not big, but it’s not a 

cough and a spit. So you get a little bit of an 

opportunity to have a bit of sing, and to be 

involved in a scene rather than just an onand-off. 

I think it’s very challenging, when 

you have a small role, if you’re just on and 

off, and you don’t have really an opportunity 

to develop anything. And in this production 

we’ve worked in a little bit of backstory, so 

she’s there at other times and the character 

is a bit more fully developed. And in terms of 

challenge that helps, that when you do come 

on to do your actual scene, you feel a little 

more centred in what you’re doing. And it’s 

easier to grasp the whole character. I think 

those small roles can just fly by in an instant. 

In terms of being something to “come back ” 

with, it’s perfect. It’s really lovely. 

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE 

PERFORMANCE FOM ALL THE OPERAS 

YOU’VE SEEN AND BEEN INVOLVED IN, 

WHICH WOULD IT BE? 

I think I would have to say that the number 

of Wagner Ring cycles that I did later on in 

my career in Longborough Festival Opera, 

was probably the highlight for me. It was the 

time that I kind of felt I landed where I should 

have really been, where your voice at the age 

you are, the voice fits the part. And getting to 

work with Donald McIntyre, who was a hugely 

well-known and respected Wotan. That 

opportunity was huge. Very special for me. 

IF YOU WEREN’T A SINGER, WHAT 

MIGHT YOU HAVE BECOME? 

Probably... in my head I like to think I might 

have been a lawyer. I had a law versus music 

choice to make when I left school. And, for 

reasons best known to whoever, I chose to 

go down the music route. I still toyed with the 

law a little bit over the years. When I’ve had a 

lull, I’ve done various legal studies, bits and 

bobs, across the years. That probably would 

have been the thing I would have hankered 

most after. 

IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL DERVAN 

24 

25

CAST IN ORDER OF VOCAL APPEARANCE 

Doctor Faust Duke Kim Tenor 

Nick Dunning 

Actor 

Méphistophélès Nicholas Brownlee Bass-baritone 

Wagner Mark Nathan Baritone 

Valentin Gyula Nagy Baritone 

Siébel Gemma Ní Bhriain Mezzo-soprano 

Marguerite Jennifer Davis Soprano 

Marthe Schwerlein Colette McGahon Mezzo-soprano 

CREATIVE TEAM 

Conductor 

Director 

Set & Costume Designer 

Lighting Designer 

Choreographer 

Répétiteur 

Chorus Master 

Assistant Director 

Language Coach 

Music Coach 

Fight Director 

Elaine Kelly 

Jack Furness 

Francis O’Connor 

Sarah Jane Shiels 

David Bolger 

Aoife O’Sullivan 

Richard McGrath 

John King 

Caroline Moreau 

Morgane Fauchois-Prado 

Ciaran O’Grady 

PARTICIPATING INO STUDIO MEMBERS 

Marguerite (cover) Deirdre Higgins Soprano 

Siébel (cover) Madeline Judge Mezzo-soprano 

Studio Conductor 

Studio Répétiteur 

Medb Brereton Hurley 

Adam McDonagh 

26 

27

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA CHORUS 

PRODUCTION TEAM 

Sopranos 

Caroline Behan* 

Deirdre Higgins* 

Tara Lacken 

Maria Matthews 

Megan O’Neill* 

Niamh St John* 

Mezzo-sopranos 

Áine Cassidy 

Leanne Fitzgerald* 

Madeline Judge* 

Sarah Kilcoyne* 

Iris-Fiona Nikolaou 

Heather Sammon* 

* denotes members of the core company chorus 

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA 

First Violins 

Sarah Sew LEADER 

David O’Doherty 

Anita Vedres 

Jennifer Murphy 

Victor Perez Vigas 

Jisun Min 

Emma Masterson 

Inana Garis 

Second Violins 

Larissa O’Grady 

Cillian O’Breachain 

Christine Kenny 

Sarah Perricone 

Roisin Dooley 

Rachael Masterson 

Violas 

Adele Johnson 

Gawain Usher 

Giammaria Tesei 

Abigail Prián Gallardo 

Cellos 

David Edmonds 

Aoife Burke 

Alona Kliuchka 

Grace Coughlan 

Double Basses 

Dominic Dudley 

Maeve Sheil 

Alex Felle 

Harps 

Dianne Marshall 

Síofra Ní Dhubhghaill 

Tenors 

David Corr 

Ben Escorcio* 

Berus Komarschela 

Andrew Masterson* 

Patrick McGinley 

Oisín Ó Dálaigh 

William Pearson* 

Tommy Redmond 

Seán Tester 

Organ 

David Leigh 

Flutes 

Meadhbh O’Rourke 

Susan Doyle 

Piccolo 

Susan Doyle 

Oboe 

Eleanor Sullivan 

Jenny Magee 

Clarinets 

Conor Sheil 

Suzanne Brennan 

Bassoons 

Sinéad Frost 

Clíona Warren 

Basses 

Adam Cahill 

Desmond Capliss 

Maksym Lozovyi 

Matthew Mannion* 

Kevin Neville* 

Gerry Noonan 

Lorcan O’Byrne 

David Scott* 

Horns 

Hannah Miller 

Louise Sullivan 

Dewi Garmon Jones 

Javier Fernandez 

Trumpets 

Colm Byrne 

Erick Castillo Mora 

Trombones 

Ross Lyness 

Kieran Sharkey 

Paul Frost 

Timpani 

Noel Eccles 

Percussion 

Richard O’Donnell 

Caitríona Frost 

Patrick Nolan 

Production Managers 

Jim McConnell 

Michael Lonergan 

Company Stage Manager 

Paula Tierney 

Stage Manager 

Anne Kyle 

Assistant Stage Manager 

Ross Smith 

Intimacy Director 

Ruth Lehane 

Technical Team 

Peter Boyle 

Danny Hones 

Joey Maguire 

Pawel Nieworaj 

Damien Woods 

Chief Electrician 

Paul Hyland 

LX Programmer 

Eoin McNinch 

LX Team 

Adrian Moylan 

Matt McGowan 

Wigs, Hair & Makeup Supervisor 

Carole Dunne 

Wigs, Hair & Makeup Assistants 

Tee Elliott 

Trudy Hayes 

Sarah Byrne 

Costume Supervisor 

Sinead Lawlor 

Costume Assistant 

Maisey Lorimer 

Tailors 

Gillian Carew 

Denis Darcy 

Costume Makers 

Denise Assas Tynan 

Anne O’Mahony 

Úna O’Brien 

Sculptor 

Andrew Clancy (costumes) 

Dye & Breakdown Artists 

Oona McFarland 

Elaine McFarland 

Molly Brown 

Megan Robinson 

Costume Maintenance 

Hanna Pulkkinen 

Dressers 

Kellie Donnelly 

Edie Dawson 

Set Construction 

TPS 

Scenedock 

Props Makers 

Bill Wright (bombs) 

Matthew Guinnane (sword) 

Armourers 

John McKenna (swords) 

Laurence Thermes (rifles) 

Scenic Artists 

Sandra Butler (set) 

Craig Starkie (backdrop) 

Scenic Printing 

Showtex 

Pyrotechnics 

Black Powder Monkeys 

Lighting Provider 

QLX 

Surtitle Operator 

Chris Kelly 

Work Experience 

Molly Verdier 

Photography 

Patrick Redmond 

Ste Murray 

Faust Animation 

Holly Keating 

Video 

Mark Cantan 

Charlie Joe Docherty 

Gansee 

Graphic Design 

Colin Derham 

PR Consultant 

Bannerton PR 

Programme edited by 

Michael Dervan 

Transport 

Trevor Price 

Owen Sherwin 

LIR INTERNS 

Assistant Stage Manager 

Dragana Stevanic 

LX Team 

TJ Danielsson 

Beth Thomas 

Costume Design 

Maija Koppinem 

Costume 

Thea Dong 

28 

29

BIOGRAPHIES 

ELAINE KELLY 

CONDUCTOR 

JACK FURNESS 

DIRECTOR 

FRANCIS O’CONNOR 

SET & COSTUME DESIGNER 

SARAH JANE SHIELS 

LIGHTING DESIGNER 

Elaine Kelly is resident conductor 

and chorus director of Irish National 

Opera. In 2023 she conducted 

the world premieres of Emma 

O’Halloran’s double bill, Mary 

Motorhead and TRADE at the 

PROTOTYPE Festival New York and LA Opera, and 

Evangelia Rigaki’s Old Ghosts in Dublin. She also 

conducted the premiere of David Coonan’s youth 

opera, Horse Ape Bird in 2022. In 2020 conducted 

nine new works by Irish composers in INO’s 

internationally praised 20 Shots of Opera 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. After her appointment as INO’s 

resident conductor she conducted a tour of Peter 

Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse and, most recently, 

conducted performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte 

at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. She has also worked 

for INO on productions of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, 

Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, Puccini’s 

La bohème, Strauss’s Elektra, Gerald Barry’s Alice’s 

Adventures Under Ground, Beethoven’s Fidelio, 

Bizet’s Carmen, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Rossini’s 

William Tell, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and for 

Opéra National de Bordeaux on Donizetti’s L’elisir 

d’amore. In March 2022 she led the National 

Symphony Orchestra’s International Women’s Day 

Concert, and has also conducted the RTÉ Concert 

Orchestra, Cork Concert Orchestra, and Cork Opera 

House Concert Orchestra. She was music director 

with the Dublin Symphony Orchestra (2017–19) and 

the University of Limerick Orchestra (2019–21). In 

2014, she won first prize in the inaugural ESB Feis 

Ceoil Orchestral Conducting Competition. 

British stage director Jack Furness 

is the founder and artistic director 

of Shadwell Opera. Recent directing 

credits include Dvořák’s Rusalka 

(Garsington Opera), Bernstein’s 

Candide (Scottish Opera), revival 

of Andrei Serban’s production of Puccini’s Turandot 

(Royal Opera House), Mozart’s Il re pastore (Buxton 

Festival), Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Copenhagen 

Opera Festival), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Royal 

Academy of Music), revival of David McVicar’s 

production of Bizet’s Carmen (The Dallas Opera), 

revival of Kasper Holten’s production of Mozart’s Don 

Giovanni (Royal Opera House), Le nozze di Figaro, Così 

fan tutte and Don Giovanni (Teatru Manoel, Malta), 

George Benjamin’s Written on Skin and Lessons in 

Love and Violence (Melos Sinfonia in St Petersburg), 

Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (Wexford 

Festival ShortWorks). Productions with Shadwell 

include Oliver Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are 

(Alexandra Palace Theatre, Bamberg Symphony, and 

Mariinsky Concert Hall, St Petersburg), Mozart’s Die 

Zauberflöte, which won a 2009 RBS Herald Angel 

Award (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Peter Maxwell 

Davies’s The Lighthouse, Schoenberg’s Erwartung 

and George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill. He makes 

his INO debut with Faust. 

Francis O’Connor has designed 

numerous productions for the 

National Theatre, the RSC and 

new work for the Royal Court and 

Hampstead Theatre. Internationally, 

his designs include productions 

for Komische Oper Berlin, Grand Théâtre de Genève, 

Spoleto Festival and Opéra de Monte-Carlo. He has a 

long association with Garsington Opera, the Grange 

Festival and Opera North. Notable works include the 

premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night 

by Kevin Puts for Minnesota Opera. His Opera North 

designs for Jonathan Dove’s Pinocchio won much 

acclaim and a German Theatre Award “DER FAUST” 

nomination. He has worked with many directors but 

he is perhaps best known for his collaboration with 

Garry Hynes’s Druid Theatre in Galway, and this is 

his third commission for INO. He was honoured to 

have his work in Irish theatre represent Ireland in 

Fragments at the Prague Quadrennial 2018. 

Sarah Jane Shiels began designing 

lighting in Dublin Youth Theatre. She 

holds an MSc in Interactive Digital 

Media and a BA in Drama and 

Theatre Studies from Trinity College 

Dublin. She was a participant in 

the Rough Magic Seeds3 programme 2006–2008 

and from 2010–2017, she was co-artistic director 

of WillFredd Theatre. Her previous designs for INO 

include Massenet’s Werther, Humperdinck’s Hansel 

and Gretel and Evangelia Rigaki and Melatu Uchenna 

Okorie’s This Hostel Life. Other recent designs include 

Ritual and Powerful Trouble (Junk Ensemble), Not a 

Word (Brú Theatre), Conversations After Sex, Party 

Scene (This Is Pop Baby) and Gold In The Water (One 

Thousand Pieces). 

30 

31

BIOGRAPHIES 

DAVID BOLGER 

CHOREOGRAPHER 

RICHARD McGRATH 

CHORUS MASTER 

JOHN KING 

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 

AOIFE O’SULLIVAN 

RÉPÉTITEUR 

David is artistic director of 

CoisCéim Dance Theatre. He has 

choreographed over 25 productions 

for the company, including The 

Piece With The Drums, GO TO 

BLAZES, Francis Footwork, Body 

Language, Agnes, Pageant, Touch Me, Swimming 

With My Mother and The Wolf and Peter. He has 

directed opera productions including Gluck’s 

Orfeo ed Euridice, Handel’s Imeneo, and Britten’s 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Recently he directed 

the films Breakin’ Brothers and How To Sink A Paper 

Boat. He has worked with the Abbey Theatre, Druid, 

Blackwater Valley Opera Festival, The Royal Opera 

House, London, English National Opera, Sydney 

Opera House, Guthrie Theater, and the National 

Theatre, London. 

Richard studied at NUI, Maynooth, 

the Royal Irish Academy of 

Music and the Guildhall School 

of Music and Drama, London. 

He was a trainee répétiteur at 

English National Opera and since 

then he has worked with companies including Irish 

National Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Wide 

Open Opera, Opera Theatre Company and Lyric 

Opera Productions. Previous productions with these 

companies include Donnacha Dennehy and Enda 

Walsh’s The First Child (INO), Gerald Barry’s Alice’s 

Adventures Under Ground (INO), Beethoven’s Fidelio 

(Lyric Opera), Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Lyric 

Opera, Wide Open Opera and ENO), Mozart’s The 

Magic Flute (INO), Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (INO), 

Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s The Second 

Violinist (INO), Verdi’s La traviata (ENO and Lyric 

Opera), Madama Butterfly (Lyric Opera), Carmen 

(Lyric Opera Ireland), La Bohème (OTC, ENO and 

Lyric Opera Ireland), Donnacha Dennehy and Enda 

Walsh’s The Last Hotel (Wide Open Opera), Verdi’s 

Rigoletto (OTC), Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore (OTC and 

NI Opera) and Nixon in China (Wide Open Opera). 

Richard is a répétiteur in the vocal department at the 

TU Dublin Conservatoire and is a coach for the INO 

Opera Studio. 

John is a director and theatremaker 

based in Dublin. He has 

previously worked for INO as 

assistant director on Donizetti’s 

Maria Stuarda. With theatre and 

sound collective Murmuration, he 

has made the headphone shows One Moment Now 

(Dublin and Washington, DC), You’re Still Here (Dublin 

Fringe commission, co-presented by the Abbey 

Theatre), Will I See You There (Dublin Fringe), and 

Summertime (Dublin Fringe, Drogheda Arts Festival, 

Abbey Young Curators’ Festival). Other directing work 

includes The Cyclone Kid (Bewley’s) and The Overcoat 

(Omnibus Theatre). Assistant directing work includes 

THISISPOPBABY’S 2022 tour of Conversations 

After Sex (New York and Irish National Tour), and a 

season at Studio Theatre in Washington, DC. He is an 

associate artist at Solas Nua. He is an alumnus of the 

Donmar Warehouse’s Future Forms initiative and the 

Royal Court Writer’s Group, London. He holds an MA 

with distinction in text and performance from RADA 

and Birkbeck, and a BA (Hons) in English from the 

University of Cambridge. 

Aoife O’Sullivan was born in Dublin 

and studied at the College of Music 

with Frank Heneghan and later 

at the RIAM with John O’Conor. 

She graduated from TCD with 

an Honours degree in Music. In 

September 1999 she began her studies as a Fulbright 

Scholar at the Curtis Institute of Music and in 2001 

she joined the staff there for her final two years. She 

was awarded the Geoffrey Parsons Trust Award for 

accompaniment of singers in 2005. She has worked 

on the music staff at Wexford Festival Opera, and on 

three Handel operas for Opera Theatre Company 

(Orlando, Xerxes, and Alcina), and for Opera Ireland 

on Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Britten’s 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also worked at 

the National Opera Studio in London and was on the 

deputy coach list for the Jette Parker Young Artist 

Programme at the Royal Opera House. She has played 

for masterclasses including those given by Malcolm 

Martineau, Ann Murray, Thomas Allen, Thomas 

Hampson and Anna Moffo. She worked on Mozart’s 

Zaide at the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme 

and on Britten’s Turn of the Screw for the Cheltenham 

Festival with Paul Kildea. She has appeared at the 

Wigmore Hall in concerts with Ann Murray (chamber 

versions of Mahler and Berg), Gweneth Ann Jeffers, 

Wendy Dawn Thompson and Sinéad Campbell 

Wallace. She is now based in Dublin where she 

works as a répétiteur and vocal coach at TU Dublin 

Conservatoire and also regularly for INO. 

32 

33

BIOGRAPHIES 

DUKE KIM 

TENOR 


NICHOLAS BROWNLEE 

BASS-BARITONE 

MÉPHISTOPHÉLÈS 

JENNIFER DAVIS 

SOPRANO 

MARGUERITE 

GYULA NAGY 

BARITONE 

VALENTIN 

Seoul-born tenor Duke Kim took 

second prizes at Operalia and the 

inaugural Juan Pons International 

Singing Competition (both 2022), 

was one of the winners at the Grand 

Finals of the Metropolitan Opera Eric 

and Dominique Laffont Competition (2021), and is a 

recent graduate of Cafritz Young Artists of Washington 

National Opera. In the 2022–23 season he appeared 

with Seattle Opera as Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata; 

with the Glimmerglass Festival, The Florentine Opera 

and Opera San Antonio as Roméo in Gounod’s 

Roméo et Juliette; with The Atlanta Opera as Don 

Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni; and he returned 

to Palm Beach Opera as Ferrando in Mozart’s Così 

fan tutte. In concert he sang Handel’s Messiah with 

the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Ken- 

David Masur. Other recent and future engagements 

include Pittsburgh Opera, a return to Washington 

National Opera. He has received numerous prizes 

including first place at Shreveport Singer of the Year 

Competition, second place in Gwendolyn Roberts 

Young Artist Auditions, first place in New Century 

Singers Whittier Competition, and was one of the 

finalists in Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum 

Competition. He is a graduate of Chapman University 

and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. 

At Shepherd School he performed Rinuccio in 

Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Laurie in Jason Howland’s 

Little Women, and Count Belfiore in Mozart’s La Finta 

Giardiniera. Additional concert repertoire includes 

Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de 

Noël. He makes his INO debut in Faust. 

American bass-baritone Nicholas 

Brownlee is a first prize winner of 

the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing 

Competition, winner of a Zarzuela 

Prize at Operalia, and a grand 

prize winner at the Metropolitan 

Opera National Council Auditions. He began the 

2022–23 season with a return to the Ensemble 

at Oper Frankfurt for Hans Sachs in Wagner’s Die 

Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Leporello in Mozart’s 

Don Giovanni. Other season engagements included 

returns to The Dallas Opera for Wotan in Wagner’s 

Das Rheingold, Bavarian State Opera for Grandier in 

Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun and Caspar in 

Weber’s Der Freischütz, and to The Santa Fe Opera 

for the title role in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer. 

Future seasons include debuts at Semperoper 

Dresden and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and a return 

to the Metropolitan Opera. At Oper Frankfurt he has 

also sung Jochanaan in Strauss’s Salome, Creon in 

Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Der Geisterbote in Strauss’s 

Die Frau ohne Schatten, De Siriex in Giordano’s 

Fedora, the title role in Szymanowski’s Król Roger, 

Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and the title role in 

Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. He has sung Colline in 

Puccini’s La bohème at Bavarian State Opera, Enrico 

in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and Colline at Vienna State 

Opera, Colline at the Metropolitan Opera, Paolo in 

Verdi’s Simone Boccanegra at Zurich Opera House, 

and Kurwenal in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at The 

Santa Fe Opera. He makes his INO debut in Faust. 

From Cahir in Co. Tipperary, Jennifer 

is an alumna of the Jette Parker 

Young Artist Programme, and has 

appeared at The Royal Opera, 

Covent Garden as Elsa von Brabant 

in Wagner’s Lohengrin, Fiordiligi in 

Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir 

d’amore, Erste Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, 

Ifigenia in Handel’s Oreste, Arbate in Mozart’s 

Mitridate, re di Ponto and Ines in Verdi’s Il trovatore. 

Following a series of sensational roles debuts, she 

has been propelled to international attention, winning 

praise for her gleaming, silvery tone, and dramatic 

characterisation of remarkable immediacy. In the 

2022–23 season she performed the title role in 

Dvořák’s Armida at Wexford Festival Opera and Freia 

in Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Semperoper Dresden. 

The 2023–24 season will see her sing Elsa von 

Brabant at Deutsche Oper Berlin, make a return to 

English National Opera, and future seasons will see 

her return to The Royal Opera. In earlier seasons she 

sang Helmwige in Wagner’s The Valkyrie (English 

National Opera), Elsa von Brabant (Deutsche Oper 

Berlin and The Royal Opera), Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così 

fan tutte (The Royal Opera), Donna Anna in Mozart’s 

Don Giovanni (Opera North), Lenka in Ana Sokolović’s 

Svadba (Aix-en-Provence Festival), Violetta in 

Mercadante’s Il bravo and Agata in Cagnoni’s 

Don Bucefalo (Wexford Festival Opera), Countess 

Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Lyric Opera 

Productions), Elsa von Brabant (Staatsoper Stuttgart), 

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Welsh National Opera and 

Irish National Opera) and Leonore in Beethoven’s 

Fidelio (Vienna State Opera). 

Gyula Nagy is a Hungarian 

baritone based in Wicklow. His 

Irish performances include his INO 

stage debut as Leuchthold and 

also in the title role of Rossini’s 

William Tell, Karen Power’s Touch 

for INO’s critically acclaimed 20 Shots of Opera, 

Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio for Lyric Opera 

Productions, and the title role in Monteverdi’s The 

Return of Ulysses for Opera Collective Ireland. Recent 

international appearances include Schaunard in 

Puccini’s La bohème and Sharpless in Puccini’s 

Madama Butterfly for The Royal Opera, London, and 

the the Gipsy in Mussorgsky’s The Fair at Sorochyntsi 

for Komische Oper Berlin. He trained at London’s 

National Opera Studio and joined the Jette Parker 

Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden. His 

Royal Opera roles include Escamillo in Peter Brook’s 

La tragédie de Carmen, Moralès in Bizet’s Carmen, 

Fiorello in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Filotete 

in Handel’s Oreste, Konrad Nachtigal in Wagner’s 

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Baron Douphol in 

Verdi’s La traviata, as well as Paul in Philip Glass’s Les 

enfants terribles for the Royal Ballet. He appeared 

as Escamillo in Carmen for Opera North, made 

his role debut in the title role of Verdi’s Rigoletto 

at the Auditorio Nacional de Música, Madrid, 

and sang Lescaut in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut for 

Dorset Opera. Future engagements include Urok in 

Paderewski’s Manru for Opéra national de Lorraine, 

Alfio in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Tonio 

in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with the Cambridge 

Philharmonic Orchestra, and Leuthold in Rossini’s 

Guillaume Tell for Nouvel Opéra Fribourg. 

34 

35

BIOGRAPHIES 

MARK NATHAN 

BARITONE 


GEMMA NÍ BHRIAIN 

MEZZO-SOPRANO 

SIÉBEL 

COLETTE McGAHON 

MEZZO-SOPRANO 

MARTHE SCHWERLEIN 

NICK DUNNING 

ACTOR 


British baritone Mark Nathan is a 

graduate of Birmingham University, 

the Royal College of Music, and the 

Alexander Gibson Opera School at 

the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; 

he is also a former member of 

Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists programme. His 

recent and future highlights include Schaunard in 

Puccini’s La bohème, Maximillian in Bernstein’s 

Candide for Welsh National Opera; the Notary in 

Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier for Irish National 

Opera; Giuseppe in Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, Mr 

Goldbury in Sullivan’s Utopia Ltd for Scottish Opera; 

and the Hunter in Dvořák’s Rusalka, and Guglielmo in 

Mozart’s Così fan tutte for Garsington Opera. In 2019, 

while at the at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 

he sang the role of Joseph de Rocher in the UK stage 

premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, for 

which he received outstanding critical acclaim. He 

went on to cover the role for both Welsh National 

Opera and the Israeli Opera. 

Dublin mezzo-soprano Gemma Ní 

Bhriain graduated from the Royal 

Irish Academy of Music where she 

studied with Veronica Dunne. She 

went on to become a member of 

the Atelier Lyrique Opera Studio at 

Opéra national de Paris, followed by two years with the 

International Opera Studio at Zurich Opera House in 

Switzerland. She has performed in some of the world’s 

leading opera houses, including Enrichetta di Francia 

in Bellini’s I puritani (Opéra Bastille, Paris), Le Pâtre 

in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Opéra Garnier, 

Paris), and Alisa in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor 

(Zurich Opera House). Her performances with INO 

include Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Offenbach’s The 

Tales of Hoffmann, Linda Buckley’s GLAOCH, Elaine 

Agnew and Jessica Traynor’s Paper Boat, and, most 

recently, Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Gaiety Theatre. 

In 2021 she co-founded a new chamber ensemble, 

Trio Cantare, with pianist Cahal Masterson and cellist 

Yseult Cooper-Stockdale. Their debut recital was part 

of the Drogheda Classical Music Festival in October 

2021, and was later broadcast on RTÉ lyric fm. 

Irish mezzo-soprano Colette 

McGahon has had an exciting and 

varied career ranging from opera 

and oratorio to song recital and 

the creation of contemporary roles 

written specifically for her voice. 

Her wide range of operatic roles include Ottavia in 

Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Marcellina in 

Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Kostelnička in Janáček’s 

Jenůfa, Mrs Grose in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw 

and the title role in Bizet’s Carmen. Conductors 

she has worked with include Simon Rattle, Bernard 

Haitink and Ivor Bolton, and she has been directed 

by Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and Richard Jones. She 

has appeared with Opera Ireland, Opera Northern 

Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, Glyndebourne 

Touring Opera, Opera 80, the festivals of Covent 

Garden, Buxton, Glyndebourne and Longborough, 

and at the BBC Proms. As a recitalist she has sung 

in the Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall in 

London and the National Concert Hall in Dublin and 

her discography includes Stanford’s Requiem on the 

Marco Polo label. Career highlights include a highlyacclaimed 

Wagner debut singing the role of Waltraute 

in Götterdämmerung for Longborough Festival Opera. 

She makes her INO debut in Faust. 

English actor Nick Dunning will 

soon appear in Season 2 of Harry 

Wild (Acorn/RTÉ) and The Last Girl 

(Yale/Saban) and he most recently 

appeared in Barber (Fubar Films). 

His film and TV credits include 

Dalgliesh, Wreck, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, I Bet, The 

Bailout, Striking Out, Little Women, Farmer Brown, My 

Mother and Other Strangers, Out of Innocence, The 

Frankenstein Chronicles, Da Vinci’s Demons, Quirke, 

Leaving, Vexed, Hatfields & McCoys, The Iron Lady, 

Injustice, Fifty Dead Men Walking, Whistleblower, 

The Tudors (IFTA award for best supporting actor), 

Hughie Green, Most Sincerely, My Boy Jack, Waking 

the Dead, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Alexander 

(directed by Oliver Stone), The Return, Benedict 

Arnold: A Question of Honor, Ultimate Force, In 

America (directed by Jim Sheridan), Kavanagh QC, 

Dangerfield, The Ambassador, Holby City, Midsomer 

Murders, Vanity Fair, Coronation Street, Casualty and 

Boon. His theatre credits include Drama At Inish 

(Abbey Theatre), Hamlet (St Ann’s Warehouse, Gate 

Theatre), The Great Gatsby (Gate Theatre), Let the 

Right One In (Abbey Theatre), Tribes (Gate Theatre), 

Anna Karenina, You Never Can Tell, Heartbreak 

House, Twelfth Night, Pygmalion, The Seafarer (Abbey 

Theatre), Les Liasons Dangereuses (Gate Theatre), 

No Man’s Land (Duke of York Theatre), Don Carlos 

(Rough Magic Theatre, Irish Times Irish Theatre 

Award for Best Actor), Betrayal (Gate Theatre, Irish 

Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actor), 

The Home Place (Gate Theatre), Henry IV: Part One 

(Abbey Theatre), The Homecoming (Broadway), Our 

Country’s Good (Royal Court Theatre) and The Taming 

of the Shrew (RSC). 

36 37

INO ORCHESTRA & CHORUS 

IRISH NATIONAL OPERA CHORUS 

RTÉ supports more than 

120 arts events nationwide 

every year. 

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. 

39

17 – 31 MAY 2024 

WEXFORD NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE 

DUBLIN GAIETY THEATRE 

CORK CORK OPERA HOUSE 

TICKETS FROM €15 

find out more at irishnationalopera.ie 

FOUNDERS CIRCLE 

Anonymous 

Desmond Barry & John Redmill 

Valerie Beatty & Dennis Jennings 

Mark & Nicola Beddy 

Carina & Ali Ben Lmadani 

Mary Brennan 

Angie Brown 

Breffni & Jean Byrne 

Jennifer Caldwell 

Seán Caldwell & Richard Caldwell 

Caroline Classon, in memoriam 

David Warren, Gorey 

Audrey Conlon 

Gerardine Connolly 

Jackie Connolly 

Gabrielle Croke 

Sarah Daniel 

Maureen de Forge 

Doreen Delahunty & Michael Moriarty 

Joseph Denny 

Kate Donaghy 

Marcus Dowling 

Mareta & Conor Doyle 

Noel Doyle & Brigid McManus 

Michael Duggan 

Catherine & William Earley 

Jim & Moira Flavin 

Ian & Jean Flitcroft 

Anne Fogarty 

Maire & Maurice Foley 

Roy & Aisling Foster 

Howard Gatiss 

Genesis 

Hugh & Mary Geoghegan 

Diarmuid Hegarty 

M Hely Hutchinson 

Gemma Hussey 

Kathy Hutton & David McGrath 

Nuala Johnson 

Susan Kiely 

Timothy King & Mary Canning 

J & N Kingston 

Kate & Ross Kingston 

Silvia & Jay Krehbiel 

Karlin Lillington & Chris Horn 

Stella Litchfield 

Jane Loughman 

Rev Bernárd Lynch & Billy Desmond 

Lyndon MacCann S.C. 

Phyllis Mac Namara 

Tony & Joan Manning 

R. John McBratney 

Ruth McCarthy, in memoriam Niall 

& Barbara McCarthy 

Petria McDonnell 

Jim McKiernan 

Tyree & Jim McLeod 

Jean Moorhead 

Sara Moorhead 

Joe & Mary Murphy 

Ann Nolan & Paul Burns 

F.X. & Pat O’Brien 

James & Sylvia O’Connor 

John & Viola O’Connor 

Joseph O’Dea 

Dr J R O’Donnell 

Deirdre O’Donovan & Daniel Collins 

Diarmuid O’Dwyer 

Patricia O’Hara 

Annmaree O’Keefe & Chris Greene 

Carmel & Denis O’Sullivan 

Líosa O’Sullivan & Mandy Fogarty 

Hilary Pratt 

Sue Price 

Landmark Productions 

Riverdream Productions 

Nik Quaife & Emerson Bruns 

Margaret Quigley 

Patricia Reilly 

Dr Frances Ruane 

Catherine Santoro 

Dermot & Sue Scott 

Yvonne Shields 

Fergus Sheil Sr 

Gaby Smyth 

Matthew Patrick Smyth 

Bruce Stanley 

Sara Stewart 

The Wagner Society of Ireland 

Julian & Beryl Stracey 

Michael Wall & Simon Nugent 

Brian Walsh & Barry Doocey 

Judy Woodworth 

41

OPERA ALL OVER 

– AND FOR EVERYONE 

“Irish National Opera is one 

of the great success stories... 

it is a dazzling achievement” 

NICHOLAS PAYNE, DIRECTOR OF OPERA EUROPA, 2022 

Image: Watching Peter Maxwell Davies’s 

The Lighthouse at Hook Head 

Opera is our passion. And we want to share that 

passion. Not just through live events in cities and towns, 

large and small, but also through educational initiatives 

in schools and colleges, and community activities that 

appeal to young and old alike. 

OPERA WHEREVER YOU ARE 

We take our productions to all corners of the land, from Dublin 

to Galway, Tralee to Letterkenny, Wexford to Sligo. Projects such 

as our site-specific production of Strauss’s Elektra in Kilkenny’s 

Castle Yard offer a unique way of engaging with our work. INO 

has developed its digital output and grown its online content. You 

can come to us wherever you happen to be. Our innovative online 

project 20 Shots of Opera was highly praised, as were our film 

productions of Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, 

Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse and Amanda Feery’s 

A Thing I Cannot Name. Outdoor screenings take our filmed 

productions to some of the most remote corners of Ireland and 

our revamped Street Art projected operas will allow us to increase 

our reach. Our partnership with Signum Records brings highresolution 

recordings of our work to new audiences worldwide. 

TRAILBLAZING DEVELOPMENTS 

IN THE COMMUNITY 

In June 2022, our first youth opera, David Coonan and Dylan 

Coburn Gray’s Horse Ape Bird, gave young people the experience 

of performing in a professional operatic production. Our groundbreaking 

virtual reality community opera, Finola Merivale’s Out of the 

Ordinary/As an nGnách premiered at the Kilkenny Arts Festival and 

was also seen at Dublin Fringe Festival. It’s a voyage into the unknown 

and places people from diverse communities directly at the heart of 

the creative process. In October 2022 our World Opera Day pop-up 

chorus brought 100 choristers and opera enthusiasts together to workshop and perform with a 

professional orchestra and soloists. And we have a similar project for Faust. Our pre-performance 

In Focus talks delve into varied aspects of opera with opera makers, from the histories of specific 

works, the development of the characters and the issues facing performers and composers. 

NURTURING THE NEXT GENERATION OF OPERA TALENT 

The professional development and employment of Irish artists are key to the success of Irish 

National Opera itself. The Irish National Opera Studio is our artistic development programme. 

It provides specially-tailored training, professional mentoring and high-level professional 

engagements for singers, répétiteurs, conductors, directors and composers whose success 

is crucial to the future development of opera in Ireland. We also work with third-level music 

students through workshops designed to give them a fuller understanding of the inner workings 

of the world of opera, that heady mixture of musical, artistic, theatrical and management skills 

that make possible the magic that is opera. Colleges and universities we have worked with 

include University College Dublin, National College of Art and Design, Maynooth University, 

University of Galway, TU Dublin, the Royal Irish Academy of Music, DCU, Trinity College Dublin 

and the MTU Cork School of Music. 

WE PURSUE AND EMBRACE INNOVATION 

We are at the forefront of operatic innovation. Our award-winning virtual reality community opera 

Out of the Ordinary/As an nGnách uses new technologies to widen participation in the arts at 

community level. It explores the cutting-edge relationship between opera and digital technology. 

In 2023 we will bring this ground-breaking work on a national tour to all 32 counties. We recently 

won a major grant from FEDORA to develop a cutting-edge Street Art Performance app that 

has the potential to redraw the reach of performing arts and improve accessibility in the sector. 

Watch out for its availability on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. 

WE PRODUCE GREAT WORK 

Our commissioned works explore issues from climate change to mental health. We present opera 

in thought-provoking and relevant ways. We nurture and develop emerging talent to ensure that 

the Irish opera landscape provides equitable opportunities and pay. We champion gender equality 

in the creative teams we work with. Opera is for everyone, and we are committed to inclusivity and 

diversity. Everyone, irrespective of background or ability, should have access and the opportunity 

to participate in opera. 

42 

43

IRISH NATIONAL 

OPERA STUDIO 

STUDIO MEMBERS 2023–24 

DEIRDRE HIGGINS SOPRANO 

MEGAN O’NEILL SOPRANO 

MADELINE JUDGE MEZZO-SOPRANO 

WILLIAM PEARSON TENOR 

ALEX DOWLING COMPOSER 

MEDB BRERETON-HURLEY CONDUCTOR 

CHRIS KELLY DIRECTOR 

ADAM McDONAGH RÉPÉTITEUR 

The Irish National Opera Studio is key to delivering a core 

aspect of INO’s mission, the development of the very best 

operatic talent we can find in Ireland. The studio is the 

company’s artistic development programme. The membership 

is selected annually, and the studio provides specially tailored 

training, professional mentoring and high-level professional 

engagements for a group of individuals whose success will be 

key to the future development of opera in Ireland. 

Members of Irish National Opera Studio are involved in all 

of Irish National Opera’s productions, large and small. They 

sing onstage in roles or in the chorus, understudy lead roles 

– enabling them to watch and emulate great artists at work – 

and, for non-singing members, they join in the world of opera 

rehearsals as assistants. 

Composer Éna Brennan made her 

operatic debut with Rupture as 

part of INO’s 20 Shots of Opera in 

2020 and later became a member 

of the INO Studio. Rupture led to 

a commission for a full opera for 

opera atelier, a joint project by 

Austria’s Bregenz Festival and the 

Kunsthaus Bregenz. Breathwork, 

a foretaste of the larger work, was 

premiered at this year’s Dublin 

Theatre Festival. The full work, 

Hold Your Breath, will premiere in 

Bregenz in 2024. 

Studio members also receive individual coaching, attend 

masterclasses and receive mentorship from leading Irish and 

international singers and musicians. Brenda Hurley, Head of 

Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, London, is the vocal 

consultant who guides our singers throughout the year. 

Other areas of specific attention are performance and 

language skills, and members are assisted in their individual 

personal musical development and given professional career 

guidance. They benefit from Irish National Opera’s national 

and international contacts and Irish National Opera Studio 

also develops and promotes specially tailored events to help 

the members hone specific skills and showcase their work. 

For information contact Studio & Outreach Producer 

James Bingham at james@irishnationalopera.ie 

44 

45

INO TEAM 

FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE 

www.irishnationalopera.ie 

Pauline Ashwood 

Head of Planning 

James Bingham 

Studio & Outreach Producer 

Janaina Caldeira 

Bookkeeper 

Sorcha Carroll 

Communications Manager 

Aoife Daly 

Development Manager 

Diego Fasciati 

Executive Director 

Lea Försterling 

Digital Communications 

Executive 

Sarah Halpin 

Digital Producer 

Cate Kelliher 

Business & Finance Manager 

Audrey Keogan 

Development Executive 

Anne Kyle 

Stage Manager 

Patricia Malpas 

Studio & Outreach Executive 

Gavin O’Sullivan 

Head of Production 

Fergus Sheil 

Artistic Director 

Sarah Thursfield 

Marketing Executive 

David Smith 

Accountant part time 

Paula Tierney 

Company Stage Manager 

RJ Walters-Dorchak 

Artistic Administrator 

Board of Directors 

Jennifer Caldwell Chair 

Tara Erraught 

Gerard Howlin 

Dennis Jennings 

Gary Joyce 

Sara Moorhead 

Suzanne Nance 

Ann Nolan 

Bruce Stanley 

Jonathan Friend 

Artistic Advisor 

Elaine Kelly 

Resident Conductor 

Irish National Opera 

69 Dame Street 

Dublin 2 | Ireland 

T: 01–679 4962 

E: info@irishnationalopera.ie 

irishnationalopera.ie 

@irishnationalopera 

@irishnatopera 

@irishnationalopera 

Company Reg No.: 601853 

Registered Charity: 22403 

(RCN) 20204547 

PRESENTS 

2023–24 SEASON 

metopera.org/hd 

46

INO_FAUST_2023_programme

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