Despite the financial challenges, Wexford continues to offer international opera of the highest quality.
Contemporary opera is a rarity at the Wexford Festival, and it is even more unusual for a composer to be in attendance. For the final opera of the 1980 festival, Wexford is staging Carlisle Floyd's adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel 'Of Mice and Men'. The opera is an excellent choice for the festival's third presentation after Puccini's 'Edgar’, Handel's ‘Orlando’.
Artistic director Adrian Slack believes the function of an international festival is to showcase indigenous talent while bringing talent to the host country.
You just have to find that balance without patronising anybody.
Thanks to sponsorship, seats at the Theatre Royal in Wexford are subsidised, but the festival is in continuing financial trouble,
With debts of £50,000 and more before anybody sets foot on stage.
Vice-chairperson of the Wexford Festival Opera Council, Barbara Wallace, feels strongly about maintaining the festival's international standard. There are always difficulties, but
I don't suppose that the challenge is any greater than that which faced the people who started it.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 22 October 1980. The reporter is Michael Ryan.
