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When soprano Eleanor Dennis was asked - by Ashok Klouda, one of the founders and co-directors of the Highgate International Chamber Music Festival - to perform some of Beethoven’s Scottish Songs Op.108 at this year’s Festival, as she leafed through the score to make her selection the first thing that struck her was the beauty of the poetry.
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Commentary
16 Apr 2019
Wexford Festival Opera's award-winning Il bravo to be streamed on ARTE.tv
From 7 pm (CEST), this Sunday 21 April, ARTE, the European public service broadcaster, will stream one of last year’s Wexford Festival Opera productions, Saverio Mercadante’s Il bravo, which was recently named ‘Best Opera Production’ at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. Il bravo will be freely available worldwide on ARTE’s digital on-demand culture channel, Arte Concert, as part of ARTE’s 2019 Opera Season, a special online service for lovers of classical music. The opera will subtitled in English, German and French.
The opera was live streamed internationally last October on RTE’s digital
culture platform RTÉ.ie/Culture. This collaboration between RTÉ and ARTE (www.arte.tv/opera) to
give audiences another chance to enjoy this outstanding production is part
of a pan-European public-service initiative which sets out to promote
European culture by offering European cultural content and events on-demand
and free-of-charge to audiences worldwide on the digital platforms of
partner broadcasters.
Saverio Mercadante was one of the composers to heavily inspire a then
unknown young Giuseppe Verdi. Il bravo (The Assassin) is an old
tale set in 16th-century Venice about a man who had long ago killed his
wife in a fit of jealousy. Unjustly accused of plotting against the state,
he has been forced by the Council of Ten to become their secret hired
assassin.
The production (
Il bravo) features the vocal talents of Ekaterina Bakanova, Alessandro
Luciano, Rubens Pelizzari, Yasko Sato, Gustavo Castillo and Simon
Mechlinksi among others. The opera was directed and designed by the duo of
Barbe & Doucet. Jonathan Brandani conducts the Wexford Festival
Orchestra.
From the outset, Wexford Festival Opera has set itself apart with a bold
and unique vision: to introduce audiences to the 'Hidden Gems' of the
opera-world by staging rarely performed operas to the highest artistic
quality. Named ‘Best Festival’ at the 2017 International Opera Awards, it
is a vision to which the Festival has held fast for 68 years and one that
continues to give Wexford Festival Opera its distinctive character.
Tickets for this year’s Festival are now on sale and can be purchased
online 24/7 at
www.wexfordopera.com.
