Wexford Opera Festival October and eyes and ears turn to Wexford where the town’s seventy-third Opera Festival runs from October 18 until November 2. Now, one might be forgiven in thinking the most often performed composers in Wexford might be either Verdi or Puccini but, in fact, the honours fall on Gaetano Donizetti. Born in Bergamo in 1797, he died there in 1848.
The first Donizetti opera at Wexford was L’elisir d’amore in 1952 and since then sixteen others of his opera’s have been staged in Wexford with Don Pasquale enjoying two productions – 1953 and 1963 – the only opera to experience that distinction at Wexford.
For all that, another Donizetti work – Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (Conventions and Inconveniences of the Stage) – is the festival’s opening work on October 18. Since its inception Wexford’s policy has been the revival of neglected or forgotten operas and this undoubtedly is the case with Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali.
Here the conventions of the title relate to the rules relating to the ranking of singers in 19th century Italian operas and the number of scenes and arias they might be entitled to expect. Maybe with such a subject the opera had little chance of success.
Originally Donizetti conceived the piece in one act but following its first performance in Naples added further scenes and arias with the final two-act version produced in Milan in 1831. Despite that the opera enjoyed little success and fell from the repertoire relatively quickly.
A BBC broadcast in 1969 revived some interest but its first staging in the UK waited until 1976. Monte Carlo Opera tried its hand with it in 2004 and Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali reached La Scala in 2009. It has since been produced in Prague and at the Buxton International Festival in 2022.
In Wexford Danila Grassi will conduct the opera in Orpha Phelan’s staging. I am intrigued by some of the characters sources of income with one being described as bowel ripper, another rooster slaughterer and another cat castrator. But this is opera after all.
Wexford’s second presentation this year comes closer to home with Charles Villiers Stanford’s The Critic, which is loosely based on the play by Richard Brindsly Sheridan. The production by Conan Hanratty commemorates the centenary of Stanford’s death in 1924. The Critic, first seen in London’s Shaftsbury Theatre in 1916, has a convoluted plot but, as I mentioned earlier, this is opera.
Wexford’s final 2024 offering is Pietro Mascagni’s Le maschere (The Masks). The opera is Mascagni’s homage to Rossini and, very remarkably, was premiered simultaneously in six Italian opera houses – La Scala, Milan conducted by Toscanini, Genoa, Turin, Rome with the composer conducting, Venice and Verona on January 17, 1901. Naples waited another two days for its premiere there.
However, the opera was not well received with the Genoa performance suspended halfway through due to the audience’s vociferous expressions of displeasure. Mascagni made a number of revisions but without any lasting success.
No doubt Wexford will rise to the challenge when directed by Stefano Ricci and with Francesco Cilluffo conducting.