One festival, 16 days, 70 events.
Singers and musicians will join the local people of Wexford for the annual fireworks display to mark the opening of the 73rd Wexford Festival Opera later.
There is an expected attendance of 20,000 people for the display, and there will be rolling road closures through the town around that time.
Then the action moves to the National Opera house, which is in the heart of Wexford, where there is a programme of daily events taking place both on and off the stage.
The festival, first formed by local opera fan and Wexford man Tom Walsh, has carved a niche as an event that focusses on offering operas that have either been long forgotten about, or are lesser-known shows.
The festival is a fixture on the international opera circuit with over a third of the festival audiences coming from outside Ireland.
The theme for this year's festival is 'Theatre Within Theatre’ and the idea is that the audiences can get a view of productions which offer ‘behind the curtain’ performances.
There are three main stage operas on stage at night including ‘Le Maschere’, ‘The Critic’, and ‘Le Convenienze’.
Alongside the three main stage big productions, there is a wide range of events such as pocket operas or ‘opera beag’ and pop-up experiences taking place throughout the festival.
There is map available to lead visitors around and the free pop-up events last about 15 minutes and everyone is welcome to attend.
One of the key aspects of the festival includes providing opportunities to the next generation of singers and musicians through a programme called, ‘The Factory’.
The initiative offers emerging artists the chance to jump into the professional world and they include singers, repetiteurs, pianists and stage management which is a new aspect of this year’s scheme.
On Monday, 21 October, the third group of Factory singers will showcase their work on the main stage of the opera house.
Two of the musicians in this programme include Maria Matthews, a singer from Longford and pianist Declan Murphy from Wexford.
Ms Matthews told RTÉ News that "this programme offers me such a great opportunity as I am getting to sing roles that I have dreamt of for years, it’s such an exciting opportunity".
For Declan Murphy, he said that he had grown up with the festival in his background and he gets to play piano in Dublin and Cork, so "it is just wonderful that I’m getting a chance to play in my own hometown".
Other key events include public interviews such as ‘The impossible interview’ with Michael Dervan and ‘The Festival Forum’ with Garry Hynes.
Other events to watch out for include ‘Bach at midnight’ which is taking place in the Green Acres venue, where they will perform a different Bach suite every night.
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra Gala night takes place on Tuesday 29 October and the main Gala concert will take to the stage on Sunday 27 October.
‘Lady Gregory in America’ is an opera in one act from Alberto Caruso with the libretto from Colm Tóibín.
The festival also celebrates its volunteer programme, where local people can get involved in areas such including transport, hospitality and front of house.
There is an annual prize voted on by the other volunteers and the organisers and the Ecclesiastical volunteer of the year award for 2024 went to local woman Anne Reck.
She has been with the festival for 47 years, having first signed up in 1977 and has been a key volunteer in the costume department during each festival since.
She told RTÉ News that, "I love getting involved every year and I really enjoy the action and the buzz. We work hard all day but there is such a great community of volunteers and as long as I love it and still enjoy it, I will keep turning up to help with costumes."
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