Anna Livia International Opera Festival

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin June - 17th-24th

01-6617544

www.info@operaannalivia.com

The second Anna Livia International Opera Festival presents four performances each of Gounod's Faust and a Puccini double bill, consisting of just two of the operas of Il trittico (Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi). The same triumvirate as last year are behind the productions: Roberto Oswald as director and set designer, Anibal Lapis as costume designer, with Franz-Paul Decker conducting. The sort of hugely-ambitious ancillary programme undertaken last year appears to have been dropped, to be replaced by a small number of associated recitals and two piano-accompanied student productions at the National Concert Hall, of Mozart's Bastien and Bastienne and Barber's Hand of Bridge.

West Cork Chamber Music Festival

Bantry, Co Cork - June 23rd-July 1st

027-52788

www.westcorkmusic.ie

The West Cork Chamber Music festival continues to expand. At this year's festival a presentation of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale, crowns an evening that also includes Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony and a wind octet arrangement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. In the festival's five-year history the programming has expanded ever outwards, and that trend continues this year with a commissioned Piano Quartet from leading Latvian composer, Peteris Vasks. There's also a commission from Gerald Barry (Six Marches for string quartet), and pieces by Chinese composer Zhou Long, Russian Yuri Boutsko, and a number of works by Hungarian Gyorgy Kurtag. And, of course, the usual cosmopolitan assembly of musicians has been chosen, including the Keller and Dominant Quartets, cellist Guido Schiefen, pianist Enrico Pace and cimbalom player Ildiko Vekony.

Debis Air Finance Killaloe Music Festival

Killaloe, Co Clare - July 18th-22nd

061-202620

www.icorch.com

The Irish Chamber Orchestra's festival at St Flannan's Cathedral in Killaloe continues to grapple imaginatively with one of the most challenging acoustics in concert use in Ireland. This year's programme will have the benefit of the sharp ears of conductor Nicholas McGegan who conducts extremely varied programmes on the opening and closing nights - Corelli, Schnittke, Locatelli, Stravinsky and Scarlatti orchestrated by Avison on Wednesday, July 18th, and Tippett, Britten, Handel (the Irish premiere of the newlyfound Gloria) and Purcell on Sunday, July 22nd. Among the recitals in-between is a violin and piano programme from Augustin Dumay and Maria Jao Pires, and a song recital by tenor Rufus Muller interspersed with piano solos by his musical partner, Pires.

Wexford Festival Opera

Wexford town - October 18th-November 4th

053-22144

www.wexfordopera.com

Not many people would have predicted that one of the talking points of the 50th anniversary Wexford Festival would be the orchestra in the pit. But the replacement of the NSO by the National Symphony Orchestra of Belarus has given tongues plenty to wag about. Artistic director Luigi Ferrari has steered clear of his favourite Italian byways in this anniversary year to commemorate important strands of programming from various periods in the festival's history: Flotow's Alessandro Stradella celebrating the spirit of the early years; Dvorak's Jakobin marking a concentration on operas from Eastern Europe and Massenet's Sapho noting that Wexford was advocating Massenet when his fortunes on the international opera circuit were at a low ebb. And when the tongues have wagged enough about the orchestra, they can turn to the issue of whether this might conceivably be the last or second last festival in the Theatre Royal as we know it, if Wexford gets the funds to proceed with its re-development plans.

All the fun of the fireworks at last year's St Patrick's Festival