LAST NIGHT marked a new era for Wexford Festival Opera, with the first performance in the new opera house, but it started in the traditional manner.
Wexford's quays were lined with upwards of 20,000 people from the town and beyond to watch the customary fireworks to a soundtrack of classical music.
Minister for Arts Martin Cullen was guest of honour and addressed the masses on the quays before going to the opening performance of Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden), apparently Rimsky-Korsakov's own favourite, at the new Wexford Opera House.
The Minister abandoned his prepared speech (about how the festival has "become world leaders in the production of rare or lesser-known works of opera") to talk about how the new opera house "establishes a home for opera outside Dublin, to promote one of the truly international events Ireland has to offer". It would become "one of the great opera houses of the world".
After the quayside celebration, those with tickets to the opera made their way to the building hidden in the backstreets, with its copper-clad fly tower and walnut interior. It has been long in the planning, first under former chief executive, the late Jerome Hynes.
Inside the surfaces gleamed and the place teemed with opera lovers, local and national bigwigs and arts leaders in fancy frocks and black-tie. Among them were Mayor of Wexford Cllr Ted Howlin, FG leader Enda Kenny, MEP Avril Doyle, Royal Opera House director Elaine Padmore, authors Colm Tóibín and Eoin Colfer, singer Veronica Dunne, Abbey director Fiach MacConghail, Druid Theatre director Garry Hynes, playwright Billy Roche, Lynne Parker and Diego Fasciati from Rough Magic, and builder Mick Wallace.
The opera, first performed in St Petersburg in 1882, was three hours long, with two intervals, allowing plenty of time for mingling and chatting in each of the five hospitality rooms.
Because of the excitement generated by the new opera house, the festival has this year attracted even more international interest, including about 30 music critics from abroad.
The 57th Wexford Opera Festival continues over the next 18 days. This year's three rarely presented operas, programmed by artistic director David Agler, are: Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur; Carlo Pedrotti's Tutti in Maschera; and The Snow Maiden. Shorter works include those by Puccini, Rossini and Menotti, and a selection of concerts, plays, exhibitions and concerts. Despite the heaviest booking in history, there are tickets available for some events, according to chief executive David McLoughlin.
The 2008 Wexford Festival Opera runs until November 2nd