Wexford Festival Opera yesterday announced details of its programme for 1998. At the core of the programme are 18 performances of three rare operas, with 16 performances of three mainstream works in opera scenes format and nearly two dozen other musical events providing a busy line-up between October 15th and November 1st.
Alexander Anissimov, incoming principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, conducts the opening production of Fosca (1873) by the Brazilian composer, Carlos Gomes. This tale of "pirates and nobility, abduction and negotiation, love and vengeance" is directed by Giovanni Agostinucci, who will also be responsible for set and costume design.
The second opera, Sarlatan by Pavel Haas, was premiered in 1938 and not heard again for over half a century. It has been recorded by Decca for a series which concentrates on music banned by the Nazis.
Israel Yinon, who conducted a 1997 concert performance in Prague, will be in Wexford for the opera's first staging for 60 years in a production directed by John Abulafia and designed by Fotini Dimou. The festival includes orchestral and chamber works by Haas, who died in a gas chamber in Terezin in 1944.
Riccardo Zandonai's I Cavalieri di Ekebu (1925) of), is will be conducted by Daniele Callegari and directed by Gabriele Vacis.
The piano-accompanied opera scenes will feature chorus-less performances of Bizet's Carmen, Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus and Puccini's La fanciulla del West.
