Irish National Opera has announced details of its 2023-24 season, featuring new productions of familiar opera classics alongside new works, with productions set for opera houses in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, London and Fribourg in Switzerland.
Touring productions will see INO travel nationwide, to Galway, Dún Laoghaire, Dundalk, Clonmel, Letterkenny, Navan, Ballina and Birr.
The season includes new productions of two of the all-time most popular operas: Verdi's La traviata opens at the National Opera House, Wexford, in May 2024, with performances at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre and the Cork Opera House, while Puccini’s La bohème is at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in November 2023.
Gounod's Faust, for many years the most popular of all French operas, is loosely based on Goethe’s Faust, and is presented by INO as part of this year's Dublin Theatre Festival, with four performances at the Gaiety Theatre between October 1st - 7th 2023. The DTF programme will also feature Breathwork, a new work by Éna Brennan (aka Dowry) described a statement of horror and protest in response to environmental destruction. It will have six performances a day in the Cube at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin to audiences of eight at a time, from 28th - 30th September.
One of INO's most innovative productions, its virtual reality community opera, Out of the Ordinary/As an nGnách, continues to tour, with dates in Galway, Birr, Dundalk and Clonmel.
"It takes you on this wild ride and never lets you go." - @fergussheil Attention opera lovers! 📢 Mark your calendars because tickets for #INOSalome are going on sale this Fri 30 June! Strauss' Salome is showing at @BGETheatre from 12-16 March 2024.
— Irish National Opera (@IrishNatOpera) June 28, 2023
🎟 https://t.co/lSI7szznCo pic.twitter.com/XklJftAbp4
A new production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, based on Oscar Wilde's play, and featuring a cast of 17, will play Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in March 2024 with, earlier in the month, a concert performance at the National Opera House in Wexford.
Vivaldi was the composer whose work brought INO its first Olivier Award. The company now celebrates the composer's operatic output through a new production of his L'Olimpiade, touring Ireland between April and May 2024, before touring to the Royal Opera House in London, and the Théatre Equilibre in Fribourg, Switzerland.
INO artistic director Fergus Sheil says, "What we’ve put together for our new season is a series of extraordinary opera experiences large and small, old and new, in theatres and on VR headsets and available to audiences throughout Ireland. The season follows up on the great success of last March's luxurious and luxuriant production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.
"This year we have his earlier searing setting of Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome. The premieres of Salome and Der Rosenkavalier are separated by just over five years, but the two works could not be more different in tone, intensity and musical effect. Our Salome is Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, who will become the first Irish soprano to sing the hugely demanding title role in one of the most chilling and disturbing operas of all time on a Dublin stage."
Watch: Fergal Shiel talks the INO's 23/24 upcoming season
INO also announced the new membership of the INO Opera Studio, the company's meeting ground for rising talent in all aspects of opera making. The 2023-24 season lineup features sopranos Deirdre Higgins from Tubber, Co. Offaly and Megan O'Neill from Kerry, mezzo-soprano Madeline Judge from Waukee, Iowa, but now based in Dublin, tenor William Pearson from Swindon in Wiltshire, composer Alex Dowling from Dublin, conductor Medb Brereton-Hurley from Bettystown, Co. Meath, and director Chris Kelly, who was born in Co. Antrim but lives in Dublin.
Drumroll, please! 🥁 Introducing our 2023/24 INO Studio artists: sopranos Deirdre Higgins & Megan O'Neill, mezzo-soprano Madeline Judge; tenor William Pearson; composer Alex Dowling, conductor Medb Brereton-Hurley and director Chris Kelly! 🥳
— Irish National Opera (@IrishNatOpera) June 22, 2023
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INO executive director Diego Fasciati adds, "In addition to cementing INO's work at the heart of artistic life in Ireland, we also go beyond the stage. We continue to expand our outreach and education programmes. And in the coming months we will continue to develop Isolde, an app we have created for the purpose of synching video projection with audio on your smartphone. This allows us to share screenings of opera in site-specific and unexpected contexts. Our goal is to develop Irish National Opera so that we can sustain the opera ecology in Ireland for the long term."
Find out more about Irish National Opera's new season here.
