Warring Women in Wexford

The 72th Festival exhumes operas by Donizetti, Erlanger, Tutino

Zoraida (Claudia Boyle) interrogated by Almuzir (Konu Kim) Picture by Clive Barda

The Wexford Festival is not only Ireland’s most internationally prestigious arts event, but for the last 72 years it has been a Mecca for the operatically curious. Uniquely, this annual shindig in an unassuming fishing port has made the performance of largely unknown operas its raison d’être.

In its early days the festival was undoubtedly pioneering. All the operas it performed back then were rarities - though La Cenerentola, L’italiana in Algeri, Don Pasquale, La sonnambula and Manon Lescaut have subsequently become standard rep around the world. Donizetti has been performed more often in Wexford than any other composer, and this year he again topped the bill with Zoraida di Granata - in what was apparently the world stage premiere of the original 1822 version (in a co-production with Bergamo’s Donizetti Festival, where the opera will be seen in 2024, the 100th anniversary of its second version).