Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Niamh O’Sullivan on Carmen’s Habanera: ‘It’s scary. She’s straight in with the most famous aria in the opera’
The mezzo-soprano has sung Bizet’s title role in English, in Calixto Bieito’s production. Now she’s to perform the role in the original French for Irish National Opera
Wexford Festival Opera 2026: Croí na Féile review – Joseph Calleja, Ermonela Jaho, Daniela Barcellona and Giorgi Manoshvili take to the stage
The four singers star in the festival’s Croí na Féile fundraising gala on Saturday night, performing Verdi, Massenet and Rossini
Wexford Festival Opera 2026: The Gambler review – Challenging Prokofiev comes to life in five-star production
Ivan Popovsky directs a strong cast that includes the Irish tenors Gavan Ring and Seán Tester as the Wexford Festival Opera Orchestra plays a blinder
Wexford Festival Opera 2026: L’Equivoco Stravagante review – Maria Barakova is remarkable in a production that hardly misses a trick
Rossini was just 19 when he wrote the soon banned Bizarre Misunderstanding, with its critique of nouveau-riche pretensions and stream of double entendres
Wexford Festival Opera 2026: Iris review – Rosetta Cucchi directs a sterling cast, but Mascagni’s music lets them down
The Chinese soprano Leyla Gu, a forthright Iris, is the audience favourite, judging by the applause on opening night
‘The driver talked all the time for the three-hour journey. I understood maybe 20%’
Rosetta Cucchi, Wexford Festival Opera’s artistic director, on discovering Irish hospitality, revisiting past works for the event’s 75th anniversary and letting the public choose what to perform
‘We had to bring a live rooster to the healer. She used its blood to make a poultice’
Kilkenny Arts Festival 2026: The Curing Line, Michael Gallen’s new opera, has grown out of his study of Irish folk cures
Magdalene Songs: ‘The oral histories are harrowing. You read one and then need a break for a few days’
West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2026 features Deirdre Brenner’s tribute to the victims of the Magdalene laundries
Louth Contemporary Music Society: Coming Together review – New music makes festival’s strongest impression
Beat Furrer’s boundary-blurring music features alongside work by Jürg Frey, Caroline Shaw, Julius Eastman, Harry Partch and Frederic Rzewski
‘Somehow I regret being here in the mountains. I really need to go to concerts’
Beat Furrer is among the composers whose work features at Louth Contemporary Music Society’s Coming Together festival
Michael Dervan: I reconnected with magic 10 years ago to keep my mind off things
The simplest way of reading US president Donald Trump’s contradictory tirades is as the exploitation of magic techniques. His statements are a perfect example of misdirection
‘I had lost one of my sisters. That changed everything’: Siobhán Cleary on composing Canto
Composer says bereavement ‘kind of changed everything about the writing of the piece’
Music Current violinist Judith Fliedl: ‘New music means freedom. It means being individual. You can be who you are’
Although she adores classical and has even played Mozart’s concert violin, for the Austrian musician the world of contemporary music is now ‘totally’ where she belongs
Chamber Choir Ireland: ‘I’m always trying to find the voice that’s going to move the needle’
In his debut as artistic director of the choir, Gabriel Crouch conducts Little Visitor by composer Amanda Feery
Delius’s The Magic Fountain, at Wexford, is unlikely to appeal to many beyond the already converted
Wexford Festival Opera 2025: Singers cope valiantly with composer’s awkward, meandering vocal lines
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