At a ceremony marking the launch of the 63rd Festival, Ireland’s
Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphrey, announced the
renaming of the award-winning Wexford Opera House as Ireland’s National Opera
House — no longer will Ireland by the only country in the EU not to possess a
‘National Opera House’.
In the words of WFO Chief Executive David McLoughlin, ‘This landmark
development of official recognition of Ireland’s National Opera House will
help secure a legacy in opera in Ireland for generations to come, but perhaps
more importantly deservedly recognises the State’s previous significant
investment [the Department of Arts has invested more than €31 million in the
Wexford Opera House] in the creation of what has been internationally acclaimed
as ‘the best small opera house in the world’.’ No doubt the finer details
of the ‘partnership’ still need to be bashed out, but this state
endorsement can only be good news for WFO, adding to the optimism generated by
the news of a 10% increase in ticket sales this year, with almost 90% cent of
the 21,500 tickets the three main-stage operas, Short Works, lunchtime recitals
and other performances reported sold at the start of the Festival. WFO is now
well-placed to continue its cultural mission to raise awareness of Irish opera
production at home and abroad; to support the careers of burgeoning singers,
designers and directors; and, of course, to evangelise for operas which have
been lost, unloved and over-looked.
Marie-Ève Munger as Rosa and Filippo Fontana as Don Bucefalo
Antonio Cagnoni’s comic caper, Don Bucefalo (seen on Thursday
23rd October), is one such neglected rarity. Composed as a
graduation piece, it premiered on 28th June 1847 at the Milan
Conservatory and demonstrates the teenage Cagnoni’s slick facility with
contemporary Italian operatic idioms, as the nineteen-year-old student pays
skilful homage to his masterful ottocento forebears. With echoes of
Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (the eponymous con-man is peddling
musical elixirs rather than love potions) and Rossini’sIl barbiere di
Siviglia (the singing lesson scenes remind one of Rosina’s show-stopping
number), it’s easy to see why Don Bucefalo was an instant success in
1847; snapped up by music publisher Giovanni Ricordi, the work triumphed across
Italy. Yet, while Cagnoni (1828-96) composed more than a dozen more operas
after this his third essay in the genre, posterity has remarked little more
than his contribution to the composite mass written in memory of Rossini in
1869.
The score is ear-pleasing, if ultimately the melodies prove unmemorable. The
‘plot’ is similarly insubstantial (the libretto by Calisto Bassi was based
on Giuseppe Palmoba’s Le cantatrice villane). Don Bucefalo, a
pompous chorus master, arrives in town and wants to put on a performance of his
new opera. He promises the locals — budding singers, thespians and
artistes — that their voices are magnificent but untrained, and that
his coaching will turn them into stars, initiating fierce competitive rivalry
between Rosa and Agata who both think they deserve to be the prima
donna. Singing lessons and rehearsals ensue, and the theatrical
resentments are equalled by amorous jealousies as Rosa is pursued by three
ardent admirers, one of whom turns out to be her 'dead’ husband (disguised
and home from the wars). There’s much silly business, and ‘busyness’, but
it all works out alright in the end. As ’theatre about theatre’, Don
Bucefalo may not challenge Michael Frayn’s Noises Off or
Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, but in the hands of director
Kevin Newbury and his set designer Victoria (Vita) Tzykun it makes for a jaunty
evening — a highly professional celebration of the absurdly ‘amateur’.
Newbury sets the opera in a 1980-ish multi-purpose recreation centre,
equipped with a small stage, a café, and various sporting and theatrical
apparatus, including a climbing frame, basketball hoop and stacks of gaudy
plastic chairs. Primary colours clash loudly but cheerfully (in a programme
article, Newbury explains that he was recalling the community centres in Maine
where he himself rehearsed countless am dram productions during his youth). A
raised office on the left of the stage allows for the clichés of romancing and
snooping to be indulged. And, the stage is cluttered with home-made props and
scenery: the cut-out flowers, sparkly suns and moons, and over-sized clouds —
as well as an outmoded Casio keyboard and a decidedly ‘square’ cotton-wool
sheep — wittily accessorise the musical numbers.
Cagnoni’s score places considerable emphasis on the ensembles and Newbury
is inventive in marshalling the large chorus, whether they are participating in
a gentle aerobics warm-up or show-casing their ‘talents’ — as conjurors,
dancers, acrobats, ventriloquists, sock-puppeteers and the like — in a bid
for glory in Don Bucefalo’s new show.
The principals all acquitted themselves well. As Rosa, the Québecian
soprano Marie-Ève Munger sparkled with diva-like presence; her full, rich
soprano gained in suppleness and sumptuousness the higher it climbed, and at
the very top it gleamed with a silvery shine, yet in her Act I
(Bellini-indebted) cavatina, she showed that she can shape an affecting line
too. Accompanied by pianist Sonia Ben-Santamaria, Munger similarly balanced
lyricism and coloratura brilliance in a French repertoire-dominated lunchtime
recital, in which the caressing, long-breathed melodies of Canteloube’s
Songs of the Auvergne were complemented by the lucidity of
Debussy and the suavity of 1940s’ Gallicism. Here she was a winning prima
donna, by turns sensuous and crystalline according to dramatic context —
it’s no surprise that Rosa has at least three enamoured devotees hot on her
heels.
As Don Marco — the petulant, envious neighbour who resents the success of
Don Bucefalo’s musical seduction of Rosa — Italian tenor Davide Bartolucci
swept through the nonsense patter of the Act 1 finale with aplomb (full marks
for Jonathan Burton’s hilarious translation), fiery fury and crisp
articulation proving preposterous but hysterical bedfellows. Tenor Matthew
Newlin revealed a sweet lyricism, a self-knowing sense of humour, and many a
well-shaped diminuendo as the Count di Belprato, while Peter Davorin brought a
ring of authoritative clarity to the role of Carlino (Rosa’s husband, posing
as his own brother). Irish soprano Jennifer Davis was dramatically convincing
as Agata, and successfully conveyed genuine emotional depths in her Act 3
cavatina.
But, the success of the production was primarily indebted to the consummate
musical and dramatic skill of Italian bass Filippo Fontano in the title role.
Last year, I noted that as Beaupertuis, in Nino Rota’s Il Capello Di
Paglia Di Firenza, Fontana ‘stayed the right side of parody and his
focused bass baritone brought some depth to the role’; this year he was
superlative in balancing Don Bucefalo’s bombast and genuine self-belief. The
music-master’s ‘real-time’ rehearsal of the Wexford Festival Opera
orchestra and the scatter-brained performance which followed were an absolute
scream; he called for naïve effects and colours — a dash of
fortissimo here, a squeal from the piccolo there — gradually
building his score (which literally unravelled like a concertina paper trail
across the forestage), adding instruments and timbres one by one, until he
achieved the climax: three bars of rising triplets from the whole orchestra
that sound amazingly like heart-tugging Verdi. No wonder Cagnoni’s
opera-going contemporaries lapped it up.
Spanish conductor Sergio Alapont was impressively collected and commanding
in the pit. Conducting the Wexford Festival Opera with brio and clarity,
Alapont managed the breakneck tempi with unruffled éclat,
and made the busy score dance nimbly. ‘Totally bonkers yet immensely
entertaining’ best sums up both the opera and Newbury’s production.
If Don Bucefalo suggests that a good song can bring a community
together, then the Pulitzer prize-winning Silent Night by composer
Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell dramatically depicts the power of music
to bring about peace between warring factions (24th October). First
seen in November 2011 in Minnesota, Silent Night is based upon
Christian Caron’s screenplay for director Christophe Rossignon’s 2005 film,
Joyeux Noël, about the WW1 Christmas truce of December 1914.
Philip Horst and Ryan Ross
Rossignon presents the horror of war as experienced through the private
stories of individual soldiers who face each other in the trenches. When
Jonathan Dale’s older brother William is killed, Jonathan is overcome by
guilt at leaving his brother’s body unburied on no-man’s-land, and the
young Scottish recruit vows vengeance. In a village in occupied France, only a
short distance from the front line, Madeleine Audebert gives birth to a child
while her husband, Lieutenant Audebert, struggles to bravely lead his men and
put aside his anguished longing for his absent wife and unknown child. In
Germany, an opera performance by esteemed tenor Nikolaus Sprink and his lover,
the Danish soprano Anna Sørensen, is interrupted by a German officer
announcing the commencement of hostilities and the calling up of reservists.
After five months of war, a truce comes about on Christmas Eve, when the
Scottish regiment’s bag-piping and carols are heard by the French and German
soldiers, lying in their trenches just yards away. Sprink has just returned
from a performance at the Crown Prince’s residence (a recital which had been
arranged, somewhat improbably, by Anna to enable the lovers to spend one more
night together); now, he is urged by Anna (who, even more improbably has
accompanied him back to the front line) to sing for his comrades. A Scottish
piper joins in as Sprink’s powerful rendition of ‘Stille Nacht’ rings
across the corpse-strewn no-man’s-land. The commanding officers agree a
cessation of fighting: food and drink are exchanged, a football game ensues —
only Jonathan remains aloof, unmoved, stymied by grief. Later, reprimanded by
their superior officers for cowardice and fraternising with the enemy, the
regiments are transferred to other points on the front line; as the Germans
depart for Eastern Prussia, they hum a carol they have learned from the Scots.
Campbell sticks closely to the original screenplay. The text is simplified
as necessary (it takes longer to sing words than to speak them) but essentially
the characters and events are retained, although there are some small changes
of emphasis: for example, the relationship between Nikolaus and Anna is
(appositely) less sentimental than in the film (although Anna’s appearance in
the trenches is no more credible
). Herein lies the problem, though: for, in
following the action and actual text of the film so faithfully, Puts and
Campbell have not so much created something ‘new’ — a musico-dramatic
form and medium which can ‘tell its story’ through the score — but rather
have produced a musical accompaniment to the original film. Certainly, Puts’
can find the notes and colours to capture the tenor of any given moment, and
wonderful solos from the cello, horn and harp powerfully sway our emotions. One
of the most affecting moments comes in the ‘aria’ in which Audebert reviews
the number of French casualties while daydreaming about his wife back home,
leading him to question the validity of the entire war: a repeating three-note
harp motif is supported by gently shifting harmonies, evoking a reflective
tenderness which contrasts starkly with the carnage outside Audebert’s
bunker. One longs for more of this sort of ‘operatic’ moment, and a greater
restructuring of the screenplay to allow the musico-dramatic forms to
communicate ‘meaning’. But, more frequently Puts’ score does not take us
‘inside’ the characters and situations in this way.
Sinead Mulhern and cast of Silent Night
Presenting the annual Dr Tom Walsh lecture, on the morning of
25th October, in response to a question from an audience member Puts
and Campbell explained why they had titled their opera Silent Night
but had not included the actual carol in the score: they made the decision that
all the music should be original (thus Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ and
Bach’s ‘Bist du bei mir’ as performed by Anna and Nikolaus — and sung
in the film by Natalie Dessay and Rolando Villazón — are also replaced by
original music). Feeling that the pun works best if we do not hear ‘Stille
Nacht’ itself, Puts emphasised that the ‘silence was the point’. Fair
enough; but I can’t help feeling that a shift of musical register, from
Puts’ personal idiom to a set-piece song, would have produced the same sort
of magical transformation that Sprink’s carol singing effects in the film,
highlighting the power of song to salve and unite. In fact, Puts does achieve
this sense of unity in the notable ensemble for the five principals which ends
the Prologue, where three languages blend in a chorus of war songs.
Campbell’s libretto is fittingly sparse and economical, but at times the
libretto seems almost too spare: the most powerful lines are often drawn
directly from the screenplay but, pared down, they can lack inference and
depth, even seeming banal. Rossignon’s moments of black humour — ‘grim
gaiety’ is perhaps an apt term — can occasionally seem trivial in the
opera, where relationships are only sketched and some of the bitter irony of
the film is lost. Thus, in the film Horstmayer, the Jewish German Lieutenant,
remarks that it is no wonder that his French is better than Audebert’s
German, for the latter does not have a German wife, a telling detail which the
audience thoughtfully absorb, appreciating the numerous ironic implications. In
Campbell’s the libretto, the inferences in Horstmayer’s statement are
transformed into a straightforward piece of information that the German officer
is married to a French woman. Perhaps such directness is necessary in opera,
but something of the moving resonance of the film is lost. Similarly, it would
be easy in the darkness of the final scene, to overlook the fact that it is
Jonathan Dane who, in his angry misery, kills Ponchel, the wry French
aide-de-camp who has been such a strong support to Audebert: in the
cinema, the moment when Audebert hears Ponchel’s trusty alarm clock ringing
and rushes from the trench to learn that the dying Frenchman, aided by a German
soldier who has lent him a uniform, has visited his mother, to share a familiar
morning coffee, and has learned that Audebert has a son named Henri, is
distressingly poignant.
I have to allow, though, that my misgivings did not seem to be shared by the
Wexford audience, who gave the performance on 24th October a
standing ovation. There were screenings of Joyeux Noël in the Jerome
Hynes Theatre on days of Silent Night performances, and I suspect that
my reaction to the opera was influenced by the fact that I had seen
Rossignon’s film just hours before! There is no denying that there are many
touching moments in Puts’ score, or that the opera communicates a rich range
of emotions: thus, the affecting farewell scene for Audebert and his wife is
brutally swept aside by a vivid and disturbing depiction of physical combat.
Puts melds different musical idioms with skill and can move slickly from the
harmonious recreation of a Mozartian opera scene to the jolting shudders and
violent cacophony of battle. There are imitation folk songs with bagpipe
accompaniment (played by James Stone), a pastiche Latin Mass, even a fugue as
the German soldiers decorate their bunker with the Tannenbäume sent
by the Kronprinz.
Moreover, the Wexford cast serve Puts well, injecting character and passion
into their arioso lines. As Nikolaus Sprink, tenor Chad Johnson
reprised the role he performed at Fort Worth in May; impressive of stature,
Johnson’s ardent tone and sure upper register did much to establish Sprink as
a three-dimensional character, fraught with inner conflicts and anxiety.
Horstmayer’s dilemmas in many ways embody the opera’s central moral
conflicts, and Johnson’s American compatriot Philip Horst used his dark
bass-baritone well to convey the complexities which disturb the Jewish German
officer’s sense of duty.
Matthew Worth brought a nostalgic warmth to Audebert’s reflections; his
sensitive phrasing and well-centred baritone suggested the honour and honesty
of the French Lieutenant, and Worth and Dutch baritone Quirijn de Lang as
Ponchel established a strong relationship, the latter adding just the right
touch of irrepressibility and charm to his portrayal of the ‘best barber in
Lens’.
Irish baritone Gavan Ring was strong as the Scottish officer, Lieutenant
Gordon, while Jonathan Dale’s distress and bitter despair was powerfully
conveyed by tenor Alexander Sprague, the light sweetness of his tone suggesting
the brave Scot’s youthful vulnerability. The almost entirely male world of
the opera was alleviated by Sinéad Mulhern’s bracing presentation of the
strong-willed Anna, which was complemented by Kate Allen’s sympathetic
Madeleine Audebert, the latter’s sumptuous mezzo inspiring empathy and
understanding.
Director Tomer Zvulun and set designer Erhard Rom divide the Wexford stage
vertically, so that we see the three regiments stacked above one another; this
is an ingenious design which allows us to witness simultaneous actions and
experiences. In particular, the gradual drawing down of a grey curtain as the
‘disgraced’ regiments are sent to different points on the front line was
powerfully evocative of the deaths which surely await them. In the pit,
conductor Michael Christie did much to highlight the lyricism of the score.
Silent Night is Kevin Puts’ first opera. A review of the July
2014 Cincinnati production in Classical Voice North America reported
that Puts had remarked during a panel discussion that he had watched parts of
Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan for inspiration. The young
composer is currently working with Campbell on a second opera, based on Richard
Condon’s political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, which will be
premiered in March 2015 at Minnesota Opera, and one hopes that as he becomes
more familiar with the genre, Puts will rely less obviously on cinematic forms
and exploit more directly and fully the potential of operatic structures and
means; this will also surely allow him to further develop his own distinctive
voice.
Most opera-lovers will know that Oscar Wilde’s French play
Salomé inspired Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera (the libretto was
based on Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of Wilde, which was itself
inspired by Flaubert’s Hérodias), but more recently I was intrigued
to find that the seventeenth-century Italian, Alessandro Stradella, had offered
a Baroque take on the infamous Herod/John the Baptist/Salome triangle in his
1675 ‘oratorio’ San Giovanni Battista [see my review of the
performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in June]. Now Wexford
Festival Opera has drawn our attention to yet another Salomé: Antoine
Mariotte’s one-act opera, also to a libretto based on Wilde. Indeed, Mariotte
began composing his opera before Strauss, but it was not premiered until 1908,
in Grand-Théâtre de Lyon, three years after Strauss’s Dresden performance.
Rosetta Cucchi’s production is fairly straightforward; the stage is awash
with amber and ochre textiles and light, and set designer Tiziano Santi has
crafted a series of proscenium arches which recede into the veiled hinterland.
Hérodias’ Page (sung with poise and a fluid legato line by mezzo-soprano
Emma Watkinson) is omnipresent. Given that almost all of the audience will be
familiar with the tale, there is no real dramatic tension in Mariotte’s work:
the libretto is structured as a series of tableaux, with an intense focus on
the eponymous debauchee, and Wexford’s decision to interrupt this sequence of
short scenes with a 30-minute interval is questionable.
In the title role, the Israeli mezzo-soprano Na’ama Goldman revealed a
lustrous, appealing tone, but occasionally she lacked the power and stamina to
project through and above Mariotte’s rather dense orchestration, with its
often low-lying, polyphonic complexities. The infamous ‘Dance’ was less
than seductive, but this was not entirely Goldman’s fault, as Mariotte’s
music seems, oddly, at its least exotic at this point; in addition, Vittorio
Colella’s choreography relied too much (here and throughout the opera) on
disengaging writhing and squirming. We were at least spared a gory head, a
silver crown substituting for the Baptist’s bloody skull.
Strangely, Mariotte’s opera does not feature a soprano role; both
Hérodias and Salomé are cast as mezzos. Nora Sourouzian (who made such a
strong impression in last year’s Massenet double bill —)
made much of Hérodias’ brief but characterful appearances. Similarly, the
lunchtime recital that the French-Canadian mezzo-soprano offered with pianist
Carmen Santoro show-cased Sourouzian’s affinity with tragic, lyrical
repertoire: particularly impressive was Berlioz’s La Mort de
Cléopatre (the first time that Sourouzian had performed the work in
public) in which the mezzo soprano demonstrated her dramatic nous
(especially her ability to ground Berlioz’s more histrionic tendencies) and
velvety tone to splendid effect. As Mariotte’s queen, Sourouzian was a
vibrant, emotionally intense Hérodias, and her vocal splendour was pleasingly
complemented by Scott Wilde’s authoritative, attractive Hérode; but, it was
the shining baritone of Igor Golovatenko’s Iokanaan which was the stand-out
performance of the evening. Golovatenko’s striking on-stage presence was
matched by the beauty of his dark timbre, confirming the strong impression he
made last year at Wexford, as Gustavo in the award-winning production of
Foroni’s Cristina, regina di Svezia.
David Angus inspired strong orchestral playing and the Wexford Festival
Orchestra captured the poetic, symboliste intensity of Mariotte’s
score with considerable accomplishment. But, while one lauds Wexford’s
continuing support for the underdog, this is a Salomé which need not
dance again.
In addition to the three main-stage production, WFO offered its usual
complement of concerts, recitals and Short Works. The latter were housed in
White’s Hotel this year, and while there were clearly economic restraints
operating, the varied repertory performed was no less rewarding. Best of the
bunch was director Robert Recchia’s witty version of Rossini’s La
Cenerentola (25th October) — a master-class in how to mount
an opera with just a tatty chair and cinema reel to set the scene. Recchia
demonstrated his creative ingenuity last year, with a L’elisir
d’amore that I described as ‘ingenious, transferring the action to a
modern-day Irish Karaoke bar — one of the virtues of which was to provide a
naturalistic raison d’être for surtitles!’ Recchia made use of
visual media again, but if he might be accused of pursuing a single idea, he
certainly justified his approach, setting Rossini’s ‘fairy-tale’ in the
very prosaic world of 1930s cinema and utterly convincing with his
‘concept’. Don Magnifico — an ebullient Davide Bartolucci — is the
proprietor of Magnifico’s motion picture emporium, his daughters Clorinda and
Tisbe are rather over-dressed usherettes, while Angelina — Rossini’s
‘Cinders’ — sweeps the aisles. Stepping through the video-projections,
the characters persuasively move between reality and artifice.
In the title role, Kate Allen revealed a strikingly rich mezzo register, the
ability to climb to the stratosphere, and astonishing flexibility and accuracy
in the virtuosic coloratura: a diva in the making. Rebecca Goulden (Clorinda)
and Kristin Finnigan (Tisbe) gave engaging performances, while Eamonn Mulhall
was an appealing Prince Ramiro, his tenor soft and caressing, and his upper
register secure and unforced. Filippo Fontana made another welcome appearance
as Dandini, and the male quartet which formed the chorus (tenors Peter
O’Donohue and Jon Valender, and baritones Ciarán Wootten and Matthew
Kellett) were efficiently marshalled by Recchio. At the keyboard, music
director Gregory Ritchey negotiated the fistfuls of notes — although
occasionally his impetuous singers left him straggling — and as Rossini
morphed effortlessly into 1940s be-bop, one might be forgiven for thinking that
one had imbibed too much of Ramiro’s champagne!
Puccini’s Il Tabarro provided a tragic contrast on
24th October. If Dafydd Williams’ concept — ‘White’s Hotel
enables us to bring this piece to life in exciting and engaging ways. As part
of the production you will find yourselves sitting in the hold of the barge as
the narrative unfolds on the barge in front of and around you’ — proved
rather more fanciful than Rossini’s romance, there was certainly much
powerful and moving singing on display. Quentin Hayes was a complex and
intriguing Michele, while Alexandros Tsilogiannis sang the role of Luigi with
total conviction, if at times he struggled with the demands Puccini makes on
the tenor’s uppermost range. Maria Kozlova gave a credible interpretation of
the role of Giorgetta, and Stuart Laing (Tinca) and Andrew Tipple (Talpa)
captured the weary laissez-faire of the poverty-stricken dock-workers.
A double bill of Holst and G&S completed the trio of Short Works
(23rd October). In the latter’s Trial by Jury, Nicholas
Morris was a fittingly aloof ‘Learned Judge’, well-served by his
distinctive court Usher, Ashley Mercer. Irish-Canadian soprano, Johane Ansell,
gave a confident, accomplished performance as ‘The Plaintiff’, while
Italian-Canadian tenor Riccardo Iannello was a sympathetic ‘Defendant’.
Director Conor Hanratty moved the ensemble of bridesmaids and gentleman of the
jury neatly around the small stage, and the deft choreography contributed to
the fluency of the performance. Holst’s The Wandering Scholar
preceded the G&S carry-ons, but despite strong singing from Gavan Ring (as
the disreputable Father Philippe) and Peter Davoren as the scholar Pierre who
thwarts the Father’s plans for seductions and assignations, the work failed
to convince. The married couple, Louis and Alison, were purposively sung by a
clear-voiced Jamie Rock and bright-toned Chloe Morgan respectively, but this
medieval bedroom farce felt rather lightweight.
Looking ahead, WFO will follow its acclaimed 2012 production of Delius’s
A Village Romeo and Juliet with the composer’sKoanga in
2015, partnered by Mascagni’s Guglielmo Ratcliff and Ferdinand Hérold’s Le Pré aux clercs. So, as usual, there
should be something for everyone.
Claire Seymour
Casts and production information:
Mariotte: Salomé
Salomé, Na’ama Goldman; Hérodias, Nora Sourouzian; Hérode, Scott
Wilde; Iokanaan, Igor Golovatenko; Page, Emma Watkinson; Le Jeune Syrien,
Eamonn Mulhall; First Soldier, Nicholas Morris; Second Soldier, Jorge
Navarro-Colorado; director, Rosetta Cucchi; conductor, David Angus; set
designer, Tiziano Santi; costume designer, Claudio Pernigotti; lighting
designer, DM Wood; choreographer, Vittorio Colella; stage manager, Conor
Murphy.
Cagnoni: Don Bucefalo
Don Bucefalo, Filippo Fontana; Rosa, Marie-Ève Munger; Il Conte di
Belprato, Matthew Newlin; Agata, Jennifer Davis; Giannetta, Kezia Bienek;
Carlino, Peter Davoren; Don Marco, Davide Bartolucci; Supernumerary, Michael
Conway; director, Kevin Newbury; conductor, Sergio Alapont; set designer, Vita
Tzykun; costume designer, Jessica John; lighting designer, DM Wood;
choreographer, Paula O’Reilly; stage manager, Erin Shepherd.
Puts: Silent Night
German Side: Nikolaus Sprink, Chad Johnson; Anna Sørenson, Sinéad
Mulhern; Lieutenant Horstmayer, Philip Horst; Kronprinz, Alexandros
Tsilogiannis; Scottish Side: Jonathan Dale, Alexander Sprague; William Dale,
Ian Beadle; Father Palmer, Quentin Hayes; Lieutenant Gordon, Gavan Ring;
British Major, Koji Terada; French Side: Lieutenant Audebert, Matthew Worth;
Ponchel, Quirijn de Lang; the General, Scott Wilde; Madeleine Audebert, Kate
Allen; Gueusselin, Jamie Rock; Supernumeraries: Sean Banfield, Neil Banville,
Leonard Kelly, Fran O’Reilly; director, Tomer Zvulun; conductor, Michael
Christie; set designer, Erhard Rom; costume designer, Vita Tzykun; lighting
designer, DM Wood; fight director, James Cosgrave; stage manager, Theresa
Tsang.
Wexford Festival Opera, 22nd October — 2nd
November 2014