Salome 2024 Programme
- Page 2: RICHARD STRAUSS 1864-1949 SALOME IR
- Page 6: HORROR AND BEAUTY DIEGO FASCIATI EX
- Page 10: DIRECTOR’S NOTE BRUNO RAVELLA BUR
- Page 14: FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH RICHARD ST
- Page 18: A new opera every week to watch for
- Page 22: BEING LIZ ROCHE... WHAT DO YOU REME
- Page 26: CAST IN ORDER OF VOCAL APPEARANCE N
- Page 30: BIOGRAPHIES FERGUS SHEIL CONDUCTOR
- Page 34: BIOGRAPHIES CHRISTOPHER BOWEN TENOR
- Page 38: BIOGRAPHIES ALEX McKISSICK TENOR NA
- Page 42: INO ORCHESTRA The Irish National Op
- Page 46: ACCESS AND INNOVATION WELCOMING NEW
- Page 50: INO TEAM Pauline Ashwood Head of Pl
RICHARD STRAUSS 1864–1949<br />
SALOME<br />
IRISH NATIONAL OPERA<br />
PRINCIPAL FUNDER<br />
1905<br />
IN ASSOCIATION WITH BORD GÁIS ENERGY THEATRE.<br />
THIS PRODUCTION IS MADE POSSIBLE BY A GENEROUS<br />
CONTRIBUTION FROM A PRIVATE DONOR.<br />
IN ASSOCIATION WITH BORD<br />
GÁIS ENERGY THEATRE<br />
DRAMA IN ONE ACT<br />
Libretto by the composer based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the<br />
French original of Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé.<br />
First performance, Hofoper Dresden, 9 December 1905.<br />
First Irish performance, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 11 April 1999.<br />
SUNG IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES<br />
Running time 1 hour and 45 minutes without interval.<br />
The performances on Thursday 14 and Saturday 16 March are being recorded for<br />
future streaming on www.operavision.eu<br />
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
Special thanks to the Alliance Française, the Lycée Français<br />
and French Ambassador Vincent Guérend. We are also grateful<br />
to the National Gallery of Ireland; Gus Dewar; Joe Csibi and<br />
Andrew Smith of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra; and Artane School<br />
of Music.<br />
PERFORMANCES <strong>2024</strong><br />
Sunday 3 March National Opera House Wexford CONCERT PERFORMANCE<br />
Tuesday 12 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin<br />
Thursday 14 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin<br />
Saturday 16 March Bord Gáis Energy Theatre Dublin<br />
#INO<strong>Salome</strong><br />
03
EXTREME OPERA<br />
FERGUS SHEIL<br />
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR<br />
The unpredictable conditions of 2021 tore up the rulebook<br />
for arts planners. Our plans at that stage already<br />
included Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier for 2023. But in the<br />
summer of 2021 we could only perform outdoors. And,<br />
after I went to see the unique courtyard setting of Castle<br />
Yard in Kilkenny I couldn’t get Strauss’s Elektra out of my<br />
mind. So it was through the last-minute decision to stage<br />
Elektra in collaboration with Kilkenny Arts Festival that we<br />
began our Strauss odyssey.<br />
<strong>Salome</strong>, our third instalment, provides a wonderful<br />
opportunity to celebrate Irish soprano Sinéad Campbell<br />
Wallace as she takes on the remarkable title role for the<br />
first time. Sinéad is enjoying a glittering international<br />
career in dramatic soprano repertoire. She was the only<br />
opera singer nominated for an Olivier Award last year,<br />
for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for her portrayal<br />
of Tosca at English National Opera. Dublin audiences<br />
heard her in same role with Irish National Opera in 2022,<br />
and I can’t wait to hear her open a new chapter in her<br />
extraordinary operatic voyage.<br />
turns up the heat up to levels Puccini would never have<br />
countenanced.<br />
Both <strong>Salome</strong> and Elektra come from relatively early in<br />
Strauss’s operatic output. Perhaps the composer wanted<br />
to test the extreme possibilities of expressionism before<br />
retreating to a more sumptuous world in his next opera,<br />
Der Rosenkavalier. But the events of <strong>Salome</strong> and Elektra<br />
tell us a lot about about complex interactions of power,<br />
relationships, family, love, lust and exploitation. Theses are<br />
issues which have not dimmed with the passage of time<br />
any more than the extreme brutality of the plots.<br />
<strong>Salome</strong> is not for the faint-hearted. On stage the vocal<br />
demands are Olympian, and, in the pit, the complexity<br />
of the psychological drama is etched into every line in<br />
the orchestral score. More than a century after its first<br />
performance it remains one of opera’s greatest and most<br />
memorable white-knuckle rides.<br />
Working on Elektra, I was struck afresh by the barbarity<br />
of the story and how Strauss’s music responded to and<br />
amplified this. <strong>Salome</strong> is equally shocking. The opera,<br />
based on Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play, was premiered in 1905,<br />
astonishingly just five years after Puccini’s Tosca. Although<br />
Tosca itself is red-hot with passion and emotion, <strong>Salome</strong><br />
04 05
HORROR AND BEAUTY<br />
DIEGO FASCIATI<br />
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR<br />
How lucky are we that in 1902 Richard Strauss happened<br />
to attend a German-language production of Oscar Wilde’s<br />
play Salomé in Berlin and immediately decided to set it to<br />
music? He had already read the play. But Max Reinhardt’s<br />
production and Hedwig Lachmann’s new translation lit a<br />
fire under him. <strong>Salome</strong> (Strauss dropped the accent from<br />
Wilde’s title) launched the composer’s international opera<br />
career and gifted us an opera that is intensely absorbing<br />
and beautifully horrifying.<br />
Like many operatic masterpieces, <strong>Salome</strong> finds its origins<br />
in a multitude of sources and linguistic landscapes. The<br />
biblical account of a princess’s desire for the head of John<br />
the Baptist is remarkably brief and violent. It inspired<br />
a multitude of artists to paint and re-create this gory<br />
episode, adding detail and inventing contexts for dramatic<br />
effect. Works by French writers Gustave Flaubert and<br />
Stéphane Mallarmé and German poet Heinrich Heine,<br />
among others, preceded and influenced Oscar Wilde’s<br />
idiosyncratic play, which stands in extreme contrast to the<br />
subsequent comedies that would make him the toast of<br />
London, at least for a while.<br />
Strauss’s opera has gone on to eclipse Wilde’s play, though<br />
not in Ireland. Here the play is admired and alive in the<br />
imagination of audiences. Certainly this is due in part to<br />
some extraordinary productions in the past few decades,<br />
including one directed by Steven Berkoff at Dublin’s Gate<br />
Theatre, with the great artist Olwen Fouéré in the title role<br />
and composer Roger Doyle live onstage, performing his<br />
score on piano.<br />
Wilde actually wrote the play in French and it was Lord<br />
Alfred Douglas who made the first English translation.<br />
There are experts who still view the work as untranslatable<br />
and contend that it should be heard in the original French.<br />
Even before the opening night of the opera, Strauss himself<br />
had decided to rewrite the vocal lines to accommodate<br />
productions in France with Wilde’s original words.<br />
“It must become a real French opera,” he later wrote,<br />
“not a translation!!!”<br />
It is always a pleasure to collaborate with colleagues<br />
from across the cultural spectrum to illuminate the<br />
all-encompassing art form that is opera. And we are<br />
particularly happy to have been able to present a public<br />
reading of Wilde’s original text. A big merci to Fabienne<br />
Clerot and Christine Weld at the Alliance Française and<br />
to the Lycée Français. We are also grateful to the National<br />
Gallery of Ireland for last month’s public lecture by Adrian<br />
Le Harivel on Strauss and the Shock of Salomé.<br />
Now it’s over to Strauss himself. Enjoy!<br />
06<br />
07
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Image: Soprano Claudia Boyle in the title role in Gerald Barry’s<br />
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. ©ROH 2020. Photo: Clive Barda.<br />
08<br />
07
DIRECTOR’S NOTE<br />
BRUNO RAVELLA<br />
BURNO RAVELLA<br />
Strauss’s 1905 opera <strong>Salome</strong> uses as its libretto the<br />
scandalous play of the same name by Oscar Wilde, first<br />
performed nine years earlier. The transformation from page<br />
to stage and then to opera presents many challenges, not<br />
least managing audience expectations of a theme both<br />
salacious and violent. I discussed with the designer Leslie<br />
Travers this “dream to nightmare” trajectory, from the<br />
Apollonian opening to the Dionysiac ending.<br />
Unusually the opera opens in silence with the luminous moon<br />
and stars. A solo clarinet enlivens the scene. This musical<br />
motif is that of <strong>Salome</strong> and its sinuousness suggests the<br />
slithery snake of Eden. We are in a garden.<br />
Strauss’s libretto is shorter than Wilde’s play and, as in<br />
the play, there is no resemblance to the biblical version in<br />
which <strong>Salome</strong> is a pawn in the hands of her mother. Wilde<br />
has transformed her into a young woman who discovers her<br />
sexuality and the power that comes with it. Her act of will is to<br />
ask for John the Baptist’s head, telling her mother and Herod:<br />
“I don’t listen to my mother’s voice. It is for my own pleasure<br />
that I want the head of Jochanaan on a silver platter”.<br />
The word “pleasure” here is pivotal. Is she simply perverse?<br />
I see her passion for Jochanan as her first experience of erotic<br />
love and she feels she will never experience it again. As he<br />
refuses her when alive, she will have him dead, he will then<br />
be forever hers. The passion of this young girl is both moving<br />
and powerful. She thinks she has understood all about love.<br />
In her final “Liebestod”, like Isolde, she believes love can only<br />
happen in the final surrender to death. <strong>Salome</strong>’s love is eros:<br />
the old god of desire. Jochanaan’s love is agape, the spiritual<br />
love of the new god for his followers.<br />
The set takes its inspiration from a medieval cistern. It suggests<br />
a claustrophobic space, a prison as well as a place in which the<br />
normal strictures of the palace do not apply. It is also a place<br />
of voyeuristic exploration. The verbs “to see”, “to watch” or “to<br />
look at” are used extensively throughout the text. We are keen<br />
to show how the viewer and viewed are organised in one space.<br />
This enclosed space contains opposing energies, those of insiders<br />
and outsiders, observer and observed, in which the audience is<br />
privileged to enter a private space but at the same time outside<br />
its power. When <strong>Salome</strong> meets Jochanaan for the first time we<br />
witness the confrontation of two worlds: the Old Testament, a<br />
world of corruption and decadence, and the New Testament in<br />
its original purity. We have a clash of two realities, that of the mind<br />
and that of the body. What attracts <strong>Salome</strong> to Jochanaan is his<br />
purity and his otherness from all she has known.<br />
The set also had to be as epic as the piece and to evolve to express<br />
the emotions at play. For <strong>Salome</strong>, Jochanaan opens up a world of<br />
possibilities. The claustrophobia connected with her situation turns<br />
to liberation and a feeling of space when she meets him. She offers<br />
herself to Jochanaan without any restraint. There is no strategy,<br />
just total sincerity. She is as true to her nature as he is to his.<br />
When he leaves her, she feels this as an existential abandonment.<br />
We were keen from the outset to use water for all its associations<br />
with the characters and the situation. In the cistern is Jochanaan,<br />
who through baptism, had the power to cleanse people of sin.<br />
Water is a symbol of purification in religious ceremonies. But it<br />
can also indicate the id, or what lies beneath, and is associated<br />
with the female element. An opera which starts with the moon,<br />
always associated with female power, ends with a grotesque<br />
display of that power.<br />
10<br />
11
OPERA ALL OVER –<br />
AND FOR EVERYONE<br />
Image: Students<br />
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Alice’s Adventures<br />
Under Ground.<br />
Photo by PJ Malpas.<br />
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TRAILBLAZING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE COMMUNITY<br />
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In our Explore and Sing initiative members of the public get to sing alongside<br />
Image: Stephanie<br />
Dufresne in an outreach<br />
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St Peter’s, Dunboyne,<br />
about INO’s production<br />
of Cosí fan tutte.<br />
Image, still from video<br />
by Charlie Jo Doherty.<br />
the chorus or orchestra in specially designed workshops. Our pre-performance<br />
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Everyone should have access and the opportunity to participate in opera.<br />
12<br />
13
FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH<br />
RICHARD STRAUSS ON SALOME.<br />
Image: 1903 portrait of Gertrud<br />
Eysoldt as <strong>Salome</strong> by Lovis Corinth<br />
(1858–1925).<br />
I was in Berlin to see Gertrud Eysoldt [German actress, 1870–<br />
1955] in Wilde’s <strong>Salome</strong> at Max Reinhardt’s Little Theatre.<br />
After the performance I met Heinrich Grünfeld [Prague-born<br />
cellist, 1855–1931], who said to me, “My dear Strauss, there’s<br />
material here for a real opera for you.” I was able to reply, “I<br />
am already composing it.” The Viennese poet Anton Lindner<br />
[1874–1928] had already sent me this exquisite work and<br />
offered to create a libretto for me from it. I agreed and he sent<br />
me a few cleverly versified opening scenes. But I couldn’t find<br />
my way to compose anything. Then, one day it occurred to me<br />
to start with Wie schön ist die Prinzessin <strong>Salome</strong> heute Nacht<br />
[How beautiful is Princess <strong>Salome</strong> tonight!]. From that point on,<br />
it wasn’t at all difficult to prune the text of its literary excesses<br />
and turn it into a genuine libretto. Now that the dance and<br />
especially the entire final scene have been infused with music,<br />
it’s no special feat to claim that the piece was “crying out for<br />
music.” Yes. But one had to be able to see that first!<br />
I had long criticised operas on Oriental and Jewish subjects<br />
where authentic Eastern colour and a blistering sun were<br />
missing. I needed to remedy the situation and this led me to<br />
truly exotic harmonies, especially those strange cadences<br />
which shimmer like shot silk. I was looking for the the sharpest<br />
of characterisations and this led me to bitonality. A purely<br />
rhythmic characterisation, which Mozart used so brilliantly,<br />
did not seem strong enough to convey the contrast between<br />
Herod and the Nazarene. You could call it a unique experiment<br />
on a special subject, but you could not recommend it for<br />
imitation. After the splendid Schuch [Austrian conductor Ernst<br />
von Schuch, 1846–1914] courageously took <strong>Salome</strong> on for<br />
performance, the difficulties began as early as the first piano<br />
reading. All the soloists gathered, intending to return their parts to<br />
the conductor, except for the Czech Burian [the Herod of the first<br />
production, tenor Karel Burian, 1970–1924], who was the last to be<br />
asked for an opinion. He replied, “I already know it by heart.” Bravo!<br />
Now the others were embarrassed, and the rehearsal could actually<br />
begin. [A 1905 review reported that Burian found his role so difficult<br />
that he had to study it “not act by act, but bar by bar”.]<br />
During the stage rehearsals, the highly dramatic Frau Wittich<br />
[German soprano Marie Wittich, 1868–1931], who had been<br />
entrusted with the role of the 16-year-old princess with the voice<br />
of an Isolde, occasionally protested with the indignation of a<br />
Saxon Burgomaster’s wife about the difficulty of the part and the<br />
heaviness of the orchestration: “I won’t do that, I am a decent<br />
woman.” The director Wirk [Munich-based director and former<br />
buffo tenor Willi Wirk], was oriented towards “perversity and<br />
ruthlessness,” and she drove him to despair! Yet Frau Wittich,<br />
whose figure was not suitable for the role, was actually right<br />
(though for a different reason); later exotic dancers would use<br />
snake-like movements and swing the head of Jochanaan in the<br />
air in a way that often did exceed all bounds of decency and taste!<br />
Anyone who has been to the Orient and observed the modesty of<br />
the local women will understand that <strong>Salome</strong>, as a chaste virgin,<br />
as an oriental princess, should only be played with the simplest,<br />
most refined gestures, lest her failure against the miracle of a<br />
magnificent world elicit only horror and disgust rather than pity.<br />
(It should be noted here that the high B flat of the double bass<br />
during the murder of the Baptist is not a cry of pain from the victim,<br />
but moaning sighs from the breast of the impatiently waiting<br />
<strong>Salome</strong>. This ominous passage caused such terror in the dress<br />
rehearsal that Graf Seebach [the intendant of the Hofoper in<br />
14<br />
15
Image: Caricature of Richard Strauss<br />
by Oskar Garvens (1874–1951).<br />
Dresden, Count Nicolaus von Seebach, 1854–1930],<br />
feared it could prompt a burst of laughter, and<br />
persuaded me to mask the double bass with a sustained<br />
B flat from the cor anglais). In general, and in contrast to<br />
the overly excited music, the acting of the singers must<br />
be limited to the utmost simplicity. Herod must always<br />
remember that, as an Eastern parvenu, he should<br />
endeavour to maintain his posture and dignity before<br />
his Roman guests, in imitation of the greater Caesar in<br />
Rome, in spite of all the hysteria and momentary erotic<br />
lapses. Raging on and off the stage at the same time – that would be too much! The orchestra alone<br />
can handle that! When I played the score on the piano to my dear father a few months before he<br />
died, he moaned in despair, “God, this nervous music! It’s like having all sorts of beetles crawling<br />
around in your pants.” He wasn’t entirely wrong. Cosima Wagner, at whose urgent request I played<br />
parts of the score in Berlin (although I had advised against it), remarked after the final scene,<br />
“This is madness! You are made for the exotic, Siegfried for the popular!”<br />
Boom! The premiere was a success, as was usual in Dresden, but afterwards at the Bellevue Hotel<br />
the critics shook their heads and agreed that the piece might be performed in a few very large<br />
theatres but would soon disappear. Three weeks later, I believe, it had been accepted at ten theatres<br />
and had a sensational success in Breslau with a 70-piece orchestra! Then the real nonsense began<br />
in the papers, and the clergy raised objections – the first performance in the Vienna State Opera<br />
took place in October 1918, after tricky correspondence with Archbishop Piffl. And there were<br />
objections, too, from the Puritans in New York, where the work had to be taken off the stage after the<br />
premiere at the insistence of a certain Mr. Morgan. The German Kaiser only allowed the opera to be<br />
performed after Hülsen [Prussian court official and theatre intendant Georg von Hülsen, later Graf<br />
von Hülsen-Haeseler, 1858–1922] had the idea of symbolising the arrival of the Magi at the end<br />
through the appearance of the morning star. Wilhelm II once said to his intendant, “I’m sorry that<br />
Strauss composed this <strong>Salome</strong>. I like him very much, but it will do him a lot of damage.” I got to build<br />
my villa at Garmisch thanks to this damage! I remember with gratitude the brave Berlin publisher<br />
Adolph Fürstner [1833–1908], who had the courage to print the work, for which other colleagues<br />
(e.g., Hugo Bock [1848–1932]) did not envy him at all at first. But the action of this wise and kind<br />
Jew would also secure Der Rosenkavalier for him. All honour to his memory!<br />
An Italian impresario, who could not afford Fürstner’s fees and was unable to find a printed score,<br />
had a little-known Kapellmeister orchestrate a new score from the piano reduction! He wanted to<br />
perform it, without permission, in Holland, which, I believe, was outside the Berne Convention at that<br />
time. When Fürstner heard of this, he negotiated with the resourceful gentleman and finally reached<br />
an agreement to surrender his new score to us and perform the work according to my score, if I<br />
could be persuaded to conduct the Amsterdam performance myself. I believed I had to “save my<br />
work” (“Oh, what an ass I am!” as it says in Ariadne), and I agreed. What awaited me in Amsterdam,<br />
however, defies description! A pitiful Italian troupe whose abilities barely exceeded those of a sixthclass<br />
performance of Il trovatore, who could hardly handle their roles, a beer garden orchestra that<br />
would have needed at least twenty rehearsals to become halfway presentable – that was what I<br />
had at my disposal for a dress rehearsal! It was dreadful. And I couldn’t withdraw without risking a<br />
huge sum in damages. So it all had to be endured. I got through the evening feeling annoyed and<br />
ashamed. And, oh miracle! At the end, my old friend Justizrat Fritz Sieger [dedicatee of Strauss’s<br />
Op. 39 songs], my supporter at the Frankfurt Museum since the F minor Symphony, who happened<br />
to attend the performance, told me it had been a quite good performance and he had enjoyed<br />
it immensely. Could it be that the personal suggestiveness of my baton was so great that even a<br />
connoisseur overlooked the shortcomings of the performance? Or is the work simply indestructible?<br />
I believe the latter, because when I saw the piece in Innsbruck two years ago with double winds<br />
(orchestra of 56) and admittedly a good cast of soloists – an excellent Swede, Madame Sönderquist<br />
– I had to admit that even with this limitation, it still made an impact. The moral of the story:<br />
how many lines of score could I have saved if, from the beginning, I had written a score like<br />
the clever little Italian conductor whose orchestration had been created for seasons in Ferrara and<br />
Piacenza? But these “l’art pour l’art” artists, who don’t compose “mysteries of national spiritual<br />
life” (Münchner Neueste Nachrichten of 9 February 1942), are simply unteachable! The secret of<br />
a 40-line page in a score is still greater than the secret of a “romantic” purse.<br />
From Richard Strauss’s 1942 article, Recollections of the first performances of my operas, from<br />
Guntram to Intermezzo.<br />
16<br />
17
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WAITING<br />
FOR LA TRAVIATA<br />
“La traviata is one of the first operas<br />
I fell in love with, my first full opera<br />
production as an assistant conductor.<br />
It is still one of the most exciting and<br />
heart-rending pieces I know. From the<br />
very first notes, we sense that tragedy<br />
will ensue. The opera swings between<br />
huge, thrilling party scenes and<br />
incredibly intimate, fragile moments.<br />
It is always an exciting challenge<br />
to bring these contrasts to life in<br />
performance. It feels particularly<br />
fitting that my INO debut is in this<br />
opera, in the same theatre where<br />
I first worked on it.”<br />
KILLIAN FARRELL, CONDUCTOR<br />
MAY <strong>2024</strong><br />
NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE, WEXFORD<br />
FRI 17 MAY<br />
GAIETY THEATRE, DUBLIN<br />
TUE 21, WED 22, THUR 23,<br />
FRI 24 & SAT 25 MAY<br />
CORK OPERA HOUSE, CORK<br />
WED 29 & FRI 31 MAY<br />
BOOKING on www.irishnationalopera.ie<br />
Image: Portrait of<br />
Marie Duplessis<br />
(1823–47),<br />
“La dame aux<br />
camélias,” [the<br />
model for Violetta]<br />
by Jean-Charles<br />
Olivier, ca 1845.<br />
“With exquisite musical mastery Verdi<br />
poured all his compassion, humanity<br />
and support for women, victims<br />
of a harsh patriarchal society, into<br />
his wonderful, heart-breaking La<br />
traviata. The multi-faceted Violetta,<br />
coquette, vamp, courtesan, dreamer,<br />
pragmatist, laughs at all the men who<br />
fall at her feet – until the moment she<br />
is overwhelmed by the sincerity of a<br />
young man, and falls in love. Her story<br />
shows both the joy and fragility of<br />
human existence and throws light on<br />
the harsh realities of a society full of<br />
inequality and hypocrisy.”<br />
OLIVIA FUCHS, DIRECTOR<br />
“INO’s first La traviata is a thrilling<br />
prospect, a tragic tale exquisitely told<br />
in Verdi’s emotional score. I never<br />
cease to marvel at the beauty of<br />
the arias, while the story and tragic<br />
ending can wring the stoniest heart.”<br />
PATRICIA O’HARA INO MEMBER<br />
19
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DÚN LAOGHAIRE<br />
SYNOPSIS<br />
THE GREAT TERRACE IN THE PALACE<br />
OF HEROD AT TIBERIAS, GALILEE, THE<br />
CAPITAL OF HIS KINGDOM. ABOUT 30 AD.<br />
On the great terrace of Herod’s palace, the<br />
young captain, Narraboth, admires the beautiful<br />
princess <strong>Salome</strong> who sits at the banquet table<br />
with her stepfather Herod and his guests. A<br />
page warns the captain that something terrible<br />
may happen if he continues to stare at the<br />
princess, but Narraboth won’t listen. The voice<br />
of the prophet Jochanaan (John the Baptist)<br />
is heard from the cistern below where he is<br />
kept prisoner, proclaiming the coming of the<br />
Messiah. Two soldiers comment on his kindness<br />
and Herod’s fear of him.<br />
<strong>Salome</strong> steps out on the terrace, disgusted by<br />
Herod’s advances toward her. Jochanaan’s<br />
voice is heard again, cursing Herod and Herodias,<br />
<strong>Salome</strong>’s mother. Transfixed by this voice, <strong>Salome</strong><br />
persuades the captain to bring the prophet to her.<br />
At first frightened, <strong>Salome</strong> quickly grows<br />
fascinated and begs Jochanaan to let her<br />
touch his white body, then his black hair, and<br />
finally let her kiss his red mouth. The prophet<br />
forcefully rejects her. Narraboth, in despair<br />
over her actions, stabs himself. Jochanaan<br />
swears <strong>Salome</strong> will never kiss his mouth and<br />
tells her to save herself by seeking Christ. His<br />
words fall on deaf ears, he curses her as the<br />
daughter of an adulteress and leaves.<br />
Herod comes out on the terrace looking for<br />
<strong>Salome</strong>. After commenting on the strange<br />
look of the moon, he slips in Narraboth’s<br />
blood and has hallucinations. Herodias<br />
dismisses his fears but Herod’s attention<br />
has turned toward <strong>Salome</strong>. When Jochanaan<br />
resumes the denunciation of Herodias, she<br />
demands that Herod hand over the prophet<br />
to the Jews. Herod refuses, maintaining that<br />
Jochanaan is a holy man who has seen God.<br />
These words spark an argument among the<br />
Jews concerning the true nature of God, until<br />
two Nazarenes relate the miracles of Jesus.<br />
Herod asks <strong>Salome</strong> to dance for him. She<br />
refuses, but he wins her over by promising<br />
to give her anything she wants in return.<br />
Ignoring her mother’s pleas, <strong>Salome</strong> dances<br />
for the king. Delighted, Herod asks her what<br />
reward she would like. <strong>Salome</strong> replies with a<br />
smile: the head of John the Baptist on a silver<br />
platter. Herodias is delighted whilst Herod is<br />
horrified. He offers other rewards but <strong>Salome</strong><br />
is adamant, and reminds him of his oath. He<br />
finally gives in, and the executioner goes to<br />
do his gruesome task. When the prophet’s<br />
head is brought to her, <strong>Salome</strong> passionately<br />
addresses Jochanaan as if he were still alive,<br />
and finally kisses his lips.<br />
Herod, shocked and terrified, orders his men<br />
to kill her, and she is stoned to death.<br />
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE AND NOUVEL OPÉRA FRIBOURG. IN PARTNERSHIP WITH IRISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA.<br />
21
BEING LIZ ROCHE...<br />
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE<br />
FIRST OPERA YOU WENT TO?<br />
I’d say I was probably working on the first<br />
opera that I went to. My strongest memories<br />
of going to see an opera, wouldn’t have been<br />
till I was in my 20s. I was dancing in a dance<br />
company in Vienna, and you used to be able<br />
to get really cheap standing tickets at the<br />
Volksoper. It was one of those really lovely<br />
summers, like boiling summers, and it was<br />
my first summer in Vienna. I was feeling very<br />
cultured and very with it. I watched the first<br />
half of Puccini’s La bohème. It was the end<br />
of a rehearsal day, so I was kind of tired. I<br />
remember being amazed, because it was<br />
completely packed and it was the height<br />
of summer. It just felt like such a shared<br />
experience, you know, everyone there was<br />
overheating, standing beside each other. It was<br />
a little strange because the production is so<br />
about being cold and winter. I just remember<br />
being kind of transported with the music and<br />
feeling...I don’t know, feeling a bit like I’d<br />
arrived in life or in adulthood. Because I could<br />
go to the opera and I could do that on my own.<br />
I think it’s the times where I’ve gone to see an<br />
opera on my own that I’ve always felt are very<br />
special. I don’t know why. I feel like having the<br />
huge spectacle, and it’s all mine for myself,<br />
is always very special. I remember going to<br />
see a production of <strong>Salome</strong> in the Gaiety, in<br />
Opera Ireland’s production [in 1999]. Again,<br />
I was sitting there on my own and just got<br />
transported. Yeah. I always find that the<br />
ability to be transported into another place,<br />
and to just surf on the music and get lost in it,<br />
is always very special for me. It’s very intense.<br />
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE<br />
FIRST OPERA YOU WORKED IN?<br />
The first opera I danced in was when I was<br />
16. It was Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, and<br />
it was in the Gaiety. God, it’s a long time ago<br />
[1992]. I was dressed in this kind of Harlequin<br />
outfit and had to come out and do a little<br />
dance on point. I must have been the party<br />
entertainment or something. I had to enter<br />
the stage and I had to be seated on one of the<br />
other dancer’s shoulders. The prop corner<br />
in the Gaiety wasn’t that high. So we were all<br />
completely hunched over and being squashed<br />
up into the ceiling and, you know, then sort<br />
of pushing out on stage, and then the big<br />
presentation. I suppose that was my first real<br />
time immersed in opera. I was super young<br />
and I probably didn’t realise fully what I was in.<br />
WHAT WAS THE BEST OPERA-RELATED<br />
ADVICE YOU EVER GOT?<br />
You mean something somebody might have<br />
said to me? It’s quite a shift in scale, as a<br />
choreographer, to work in opera. I remember<br />
being very intimidated by it. You’re used to<br />
being in a rehearsal room with maybe six<br />
or seven dancers. And then all of a sudden<br />
you’ve got like 40 chorus staring at you and<br />
you have to keep everybody busy, work out<br />
everybody’s role. It’s very intense. You really<br />
have to know everything that’s going on.<br />
That can be quite overwhelming. I remember<br />
doing a production of Verdi’s Aida in Seoul,<br />
for the National Opera of Korea. It was the<br />
biggest thing I’d ever been part of, in this<br />
enormous opera house, in an enormous<br />
production. They did the full ballet in Aida,<br />
and they brought in a circus troop from from<br />
China. So there was a translation thing going<br />
on as well. I thought my head was going to<br />
explode. I just remember people around me<br />
saying, just roll with it. Because I thought<br />
I could control it, I thought I could make it<br />
work, and then I felt it was absolutely beyond<br />
me. But if you just roll with the energy and<br />
what’s happening, it’s sort of the better road<br />
to take, I think.<br />
WHAT’S THE MOST ANNOYING<br />
MISCONCEPTION ABOUT OPERA?<br />
I suppose that it’s not for everyone or, you<br />
know, that it’s not relevant in a more modern<br />
situation. Coming from a dance point of view,<br />
I’m sure people feel like that about dance.<br />
I can see sometimes when I walk into the<br />
opera that it’s like a whole other ecosystem at<br />
work here. There are different rules in terms<br />
16<br />
Photo: Liz Roche.<br />
23
Image: Scene from Liz Roche’s critically-acclaimed<br />
(New York Times Critic’s Pick), Ulysses-inspired<br />
Yes and Yes for Washington’s Solas Nua company.<br />
Photo: Steve O’Connor.<br />
of talking and singing and what happens<br />
on stage. And people come to a dance<br />
performance and they say it’s impenetrable.<br />
But if you spend a little bit of time there,<br />
you’ll find a way in. It’s not that you have<br />
to understand. You have to let it seep into<br />
you for for a time. I think opera is incredibly<br />
current. I’ve worked on a number of operas<br />
by modern composers and I’ve been chilled<br />
to my bone. I remember doing Richard<br />
Rodney Bennett’s The Mines of Sulphur<br />
in Wexford, and I was scared. I remember<br />
thinking, I’m working on this and I’m scared!<br />
You know, in places it felt like watching a<br />
horror movie or something. It was really so<br />
overwhelming. I don’t think we’ve got so<br />
many of those experiences left. We’re a little<br />
bit in desensitised with film. When you go<br />
into opera and the kind of scale of it, I think<br />
it’s really quite special. It’s hard to match<br />
that experience. It doesn’t happen as often<br />
in theatre and dance, say, just that coming<br />
together of everything and the intensity of it.<br />
WHAT MOMENT DO YOU MOST LOOK<br />
FORWARD TO WHEN YOU GO TO A<br />
PERFORMANCE OF SALOME?<br />
When I first saw it all those years ago, on my<br />
own, I got very emotional at one point. There’s<br />
a moment when John the Baptist talks about<br />
the Sea of Galilee and this image of Christ on<br />
the Sea of Galilee. There was such peace in it<br />
that it really went deep into my core. So I look<br />
forward to that, musically. But, as a person in<br />
dance, I’m always curious about the dance,<br />
and the music for it is exceptional. That’s the<br />
thing that I’m spending the most time with<br />
and that’s the thing that I’m enjoying the most<br />
at the moment.<br />
WHAT IS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE<br />
OF CHOREOGRAPHING SALOME?<br />
It’s actually a really lovely experience. And<br />
Sinéad is amazing. Bruno is amazing and the<br />
whole team is really lovely and supportive.<br />
The challenges are that the dance is long. It’s<br />
nine and a half minutes. Usually when I’m<br />
brought in for something, it might be three<br />
minutes here, two minutes there, a quick<br />
little something. But this is quite a sustained<br />
piece, there’s a huge journey in it, and it’s<br />
very important for the narrative that she lives<br />
that journey in a really authentic way. The<br />
dance has to find a way to to say that. But<br />
it’s great. You just get your teeth into it and<br />
there’s so much support. Fergus is great. He<br />
broke down the motifs, the musical motifs<br />
and where things are coming from, and that<br />
just makes it all so much more possible.<br />
WHOSE CHOREOGRAPHY IN OPERA<br />
HAS WOWED YOU THE MOST?<br />
I would have to say that it would be the work<br />
of Lucinda Childs on Einstein on the Beach.<br />
Though I don’t know if it’s entirely right to<br />
single her out, as the collaboration between<br />
Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Childs made<br />
an extraordinary production. The collaboration<br />
between music, visuals and movement<br />
is permanently imprinted in my thinking.<br />
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it live, but was<br />
totally blown away when I saw it on TV. For me,<br />
the dances were somewhere between pure<br />
joy and endurance, allowing me to lose myself<br />
in all the internal rhythms of the music and<br />
repetitions of pattern. I was mesmerised.<br />
IF YOU WEREN’T A DANCER OR A<br />
CHOREOGRAPHER, WHAT MIGHT YOU<br />
HAVE BECOME?<br />
I would have loved to play in an orchestra. I<br />
don’t really mind what instrument. I have a<br />
total fantasy about what it’s like to play in a<br />
really big orchestra and to be part that kind<br />
of group organisation and liveness. I always<br />
want to know how that feels. I was never really<br />
interested in being a solo dancer or being on<br />
my own. I had too much time to think and<br />
I didn’t like it. But I love being with a group<br />
of dancers, working as a team and kind of<br />
breathing as a team, and having that sense of<br />
connection. I’ve always imagined that it’s like<br />
that in an orchestra. Yeah, I always thought<br />
that would be a nice thing to do with your life.<br />
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL DERVAN<br />
24<br />
25
CAST IN ORDER OF VOCAL APPEARANCE<br />
Narraboth Alex McKissick Tenor<br />
Young Syrian, Captain of the Guard<br />
The Page of Herodias Doreen Curran Mezzo-soprano<br />
First soldier Julian Close Bass<br />
Second soldier Lukas Jakobski Bass<br />
Jochanaan Tómas Tómasson Baritone<br />
Jochanaan the Prophet (John the Baptist)<br />
A Cappadocian Kevin Neville Bass<br />
<strong>Salome</strong> Sinéad Campbell Wallace Soprano<br />
Daughter of Herodias<br />
A slave Leanne Fitzgerald Mezzo-soprano<br />
Herodes Vincent Wolfsteiner Tenor<br />
Herod, Tetrarch of Judaea<br />
Herodias Imelda Drumm Mezzo-soprano<br />
Wife of the Tetrarch<br />
First Jew Christopher Bowen Tenor<br />
Second Jew Andrew Masterson Tenor<br />
Third Jew William Pearson Tenor<br />
Fourth Jew Aaron O’Hare Tenor<br />
Fifth Jew Eoghan Desmond Bass-baritone<br />
First Nazarene Wyn Pencarreg Bass-baritone<br />
Second Nazarene Eoin Foran Baritone<br />
CREATIVE TEAM<br />
Conductor<br />
Director<br />
Set & Costume Designer<br />
Lighting Designer<br />
Choreographer<br />
Assistant Conductor<br />
Assistant Director<br />
Répétiteur<br />
Language Coach<br />
PARTICIPATING INO STUDIO MEMBERS<br />
Studio Conductor<br />
Studio Répétiteur<br />
Assistant Director<br />
Fergus Sheil<br />
Bruno Ravella<br />
Leslie Travers<br />
Ciarán Bagnall<br />
Liz Roche<br />
Elaine Kelly<br />
Chris Kelly<br />
Mark Lawson<br />
Mark Lawson<br />
Medb Brereton Hurley<br />
Adam McDonagh<br />
Chris Kelly<br />
26<br />
27
IRISH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA<br />
PRODUCTION TEAM<br />
First Violins<br />
Ioana Petcu-Colan<br />
LEADER<br />
David O’Doherty<br />
Molly O’Shea<br />
Anita Vedres<br />
Jennifer Murphy<br />
Gina Maria McGuinness<br />
Maria Ryan<br />
Brigid Leman<br />
Conor Masterson<br />
Nasenbilige Ta<br />
Second Violins<br />
Larissa O’Grady<br />
Aoife Dowdall<br />
Christine Kenny<br />
Emma Masterson<br />
Sarah Perricone<br />
Matthew Wylie<br />
Rachel Du<br />
Roisin Dooley<br />
Violas<br />
Andreea Banciu<br />
Giammaria Tesei<br />
Gawain Usher<br />
Marta Garcia Villalobos<br />
Carla Vedres<br />
Aoise O’Dwyer<br />
Cellos<br />
David Edmunds<br />
Aoife Burke<br />
Yseult Cooper Stockdale<br />
Paula Hughes<br />
Jonathan Few<br />
Caitríona Finnegan<br />
Double Basses<br />
Dominic Dudley<br />
Maeve Sheil<br />
Gareth Hopkins<br />
Paul Stephens<br />
Harp<br />
Dianne Marshall<br />
Celesta<br />
Aoife O’Sullivan<br />
Flutes<br />
Meadhbh O’Rourke<br />
Naoise Ó Briain<br />
Susan Doyle<br />
Piccolo<br />
Susan Doyle<br />
Oboes<br />
Aoife McCambridge<br />
Jenny Magee<br />
Cor Anglais<br />
Rebecca Halliday<br />
Clarinets<br />
Conor Sheil<br />
Suzanne Forde<br />
E flat Clarinet<br />
Seamus Wylie<br />
Bass Clarinet<br />
Deirdre O’Leary<br />
Bassoons<br />
John Hearne<br />
Clíona Warren<br />
Luke Whitehead<br />
Contrabassoon<br />
Luke Whitehead<br />
Horns<br />
Hannah Miller<br />
Louise Sullian<br />
Ian Dakin<br />
Dewi Garmon Jones<br />
Caoime Galvin<br />
Trumpets<br />
Colm Byrne<br />
Erick Castillo Mora<br />
Nathan McDonnell<br />
Trombones<br />
Ross Lyness<br />
Colm O’Hara<br />
Bass Trombone<br />
Paul Frost<br />
Tuba<br />
Stephen Irvine<br />
Timpani<br />
Noel Eccles<br />
Percussion<br />
Catríona Frost<br />
Richard O’Donnell<br />
Brian Dungan<br />
Patrick Nolan<br />
John Rosseau<br />
Emily Gatchell<br />
Production Manager<br />
Peter Jordan<br />
Company Stage Manager<br />
Paula Tierney<br />
Stage Manager<br />
Anne Kyle<br />
Assistant Stage Manager<br />
Ross Smith<br />
Technical SM<br />
Danny Hones<br />
Technical Crew<br />
Abraham Allen<br />
Peter Boyle<br />
Eoin Hannaway<br />
Fergus McDonagh<br />
Joey Maguire<br />
Pawel Nieworaj<br />
Martin Wallace<br />
Kinesys <strong>Programme</strong>r & Operator<br />
Mark Davies<br />
Contract Crew<br />
ESI<br />
Chief LX<br />
Donal McNinch<br />
LX <strong>Programme</strong>r<br />
Eoin McNinch<br />
LX Crew<br />
June González Iriarte<br />
Paul Hyland<br />
Wigs, Hair & Makeup<br />
Supervisor<br />
Carole Dunne<br />
Wigs, hair, Make-up Assistants<br />
Tee Elliott<br />
Paula Melián<br />
Costume Supervisor<br />
Sinead Lawlor<br />
Tailor<br />
Gillian Carew<br />
Costume Cutters<br />
Denise Assas<br />
Ofelia Haislund<br />
Costume Makers<br />
Hanna Pulkkinen<br />
Helen Garvey<br />
Breakdown Artist<br />
Molly Brown<br />
Costume Assistants/Dressers<br />
Ciara Coleman Geaney<br />
Ben Hackett<br />
Surtitle Operator<br />
Susan Brodigan<br />
Lighting Provider<br />
Cue One<br />
QLX<br />
Set Construction<br />
CTS (Set)<br />
Scenedock/Temple Props<br />
Props & Effects<br />
Jim McConnell<br />
Craig Starkie<br />
Frances White<br />
Conor Courtney<br />
Sandra Butler<br />
Rigging<br />
Unusual Rigging<br />
IADT INTERNS<br />
Suzanne Armstrong<br />
Diana Simanovic<br />
ADDITIONAL THANKS<br />
Photography<br />
Pato Cassinoni<br />
Ste Murray<br />
Video<br />
Charlie Joe Doherty<br />
Gansee<br />
Graphic Design<br />
Colin Derham<br />
<strong>Programme</strong> edited by<br />
Michael Dervan<br />
Transport<br />
Trevor Price Transport<br />
28 29
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
FERGUS SHEIL<br />
CONDUCTOR<br />
BRUNO RAVELLA<br />
DIRECTOR<br />
LESLIE TRAVERS<br />
DESIGNER<br />
CIARÁN BAGNALL<br />
LIGHTING DESIGNER<br />
Fergus is the founding artistic<br />
director of Irish National Opera.<br />
He has conducted a wide-ranging<br />
repertoire of over 50 different<br />
operas live, for recordings, and on<br />
film. Highlights include Strauss’s<br />
Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra, Rossini’s William Tell<br />
and La Cenerentola, Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’s<br />
Least Like The Other, half of 20 Shots of Opera, and<br />
Beethoven’s Fidelio (Irish National Opera). He has<br />
also conducted Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, John<br />
Adams’s Nixon in China, Rossini’s The Barber of<br />
Seville (Wide Open Opera), Mozart’s Don Giovanni<br />
and the first modern performance and recording<br />
of Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish-language opera, Eithne<br />
(Opera Theatre Company). Abroad he has conducted<br />
Least Like The Other in the Linbury Theatre at the<br />
Royal Opera House, London, and William Tell for<br />
Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, and has also conducted for<br />
Scottish Opera and Welsh National Opera. At home<br />
he has also conducted the National Symphony<br />
Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster<br />
Orchestra, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. With<br />
the State Choir Latvija he gave the world premiere of<br />
Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry and has also conducted<br />
the BBC Singers. He has fulfilled engagements in<br />
the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, the UK,<br />
France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Malta and<br />
Estonia. Before founding INO he led both Wide Open<br />
Opera and Opera Theatre Company. Since 2011<br />
he has been responsible for the production of over<br />
seventy different operas, which have been seen<br />
around Ireland and in London, Edinburgh, New York,<br />
Amsterdam and Luxembourg.<br />
Bruno Ravella is an international<br />
opera director based in London.<br />
Born in Casablanca, Morocco,<br />
of Italian and Polish parents, he<br />
studied in France and moved to<br />
London in 1991 on graduation.<br />
His critically acclaimed production of Massenet’s<br />
Werther at the Opera national de Lorraine won the<br />
Prix Claude-Rostand in 2017–18. Verdi’s Falstaff<br />
at Garsington Opera in 2018 was nominated for the<br />
South Bank Sky Arts Award in the opera category.<br />
He has directed Verdi’s Rigoletto (Opera Theatre of<br />
Saint Louis), Puccini’s La bohème (Opera di Firenze,<br />
Italy), Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and Ravel’s L’heure<br />
espagnole with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Opéra<br />
national de Lorraine, France), Massenet’s Werther<br />
(Opéra de Québec), Puccini’s Madama Butterfly,<br />
Verdi’s Macbeth, Handel’s Agrippina, Verdi’s Falstaff<br />
and Verdi’s La traviata (Iford Arts, UK), Handel’s<br />
Giulio Cesare and La traviata (Stand’été, Moutier,<br />
Switzerland), Bizet’s Carmen (Riverside Opera, UK),<br />
Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers<br />
and Blow’s Venus and Adonis (Les Arts Florissants),<br />
La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers (Glyndebourne<br />
Jerwood Project, UK), Verdi’s Stiffelio (Opéra national<br />
du Rhin), Strauss’s Intermezzo (Garsington Opera),<br />
and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (Garsington Opera/<br />
Irish National Opera). He was nominated for the<br />
Independent Opera Director Fellowship in 2015.<br />
He has been recognised time and again for his “pinsharp<br />
attention to detail” and ability to clearly portray<br />
subtleties of the human condition.<br />
Multi award-winning designer Leslie<br />
Travers trained at the Wimbledon<br />
School of Art‚ and is recognised as<br />
one of the leading stage designers<br />
of his generation. He was recently<br />
honoured by Liverpool Institute of<br />
the Performing Arts where he was given an honorary<br />
doctorate, as Companion of LIPA. His current and<br />
recent operatic projects include major designs in<br />
many of the leading opera houses of Europe, US,<br />
UK and beyond. His most recent ventures have<br />
taken him to Bucharest, Santa Fe, Greek National<br />
Opera and Opera North, where he recently designed<br />
their Sustainable Season. Outside the opera theatre,<br />
his most recent projects include such diverse<br />
creations as film, a theme park, a new cruise ship,<br />
an immersive game, and a production with NASA<br />
to celebrate the anniversary of man walking on<br />
the Moon.<br />
Ciarán is a lighting and set designer<br />
with over 25 years experience<br />
in theatre design. He is based in<br />
Belfast and is an associate artist with<br />
Prime Cut Productions. He made<br />
his Irish National Opera debut with<br />
the set and lighting for Mozart’s The Magic Flute in<br />
2019. His recent lighting designs include Evangelia<br />
Rigaki’s Old Ghosts (Part of Ulysses 2.2 by ANU, Irish<br />
National Opera, Landmark Productions and MoLI),<br />
The Lonesome West, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The<br />
Cripple of Inishmaan (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin); Romeo<br />
& Juliet (Regent’s Park, London); There Are Little<br />
Kingdoms (Town Hall Theatre, Galway); Scrapefoot<br />
(The Ark, Dublin); The Anvil (Manchester Theatre<br />
Festival 2019); Hamlet (Octagon Theatre, Bolton);<br />
Pentecost (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Perseverance Drive<br />
(Bush Theatre, London); Dido, Queen of Carthage<br />
(RSC); Much Ado about Nothing (RSC, Stratford Upon<br />
Avon and London West End). His recent set and lighting<br />
designs include: Cavalcaders (Druid); X’ntigone<br />
(MAC, Belfast/Abbey Theatre, Dublin); Rough Girls,<br />
A Streetcar named Desire, RED, Lovers (Lyric Theatre);<br />
The Whip (RSC); A Christmas Carol, The Great Gatsby<br />
(Gate, Dublin); The Merchant of Venice (Great Theatre,<br />
Shanghai); UBU The King, The Man Who Fell to Pieces,<br />
Hard to be Soft, Lally the Scut, The God of Carnage,<br />
Villa, Discurso, Tejas Verdes (MAC, Belfast); The Train,<br />
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the<br />
Somme (Abbey Theatre); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s<br />
Globe, London); Othello (RSC); Shoot the Crow (Grand<br />
Opera House, Belfast); Snookered (Bush Theatre,<br />
London); The Killing of Sister George (Arts Theatre,<br />
London); A Slight Ache and Landscape (Lyttelton<br />
Theatre, National Theatre London).<br />
30<br />
31
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
LIZ ROCHE<br />
CHOREOGRAPHER<br />
ELAINE KELLY<br />
ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR<br />
CHRIS KELLY<br />
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR<br />
MARK LAWSON<br />
RÉPÉTITEUR & LANGUAGE COACH<br />
Liz is currently choreographer<br />
and Artistic Director of Dublin<br />
based dance company Liz Roche<br />
Company. Since 1999, the company<br />
has produced and toured over 20<br />
of her choreographies, performing<br />
throughout Ireland and internationally at prestigious<br />
venues and festivals. She has been commissioned<br />
by festivals, dance companies and venues including<br />
Unreal Cities, Solas Nua in Washington D.C, The<br />
Abbey Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival, Cork Opera<br />
House, The National Ballet of China, Goethe Institut<br />
Irland, The National Gallery of Ireland, Arcane<br />
Collective, Croi Glan Integrated Dance, Scottish<br />
Dance Theatre, DTI and CoisCéim. Her work for INO<br />
includes Verdi’s Aida and Strauss’ Elektra. She has<br />
also choreographed operas for Wexford Festival<br />
Opera, National Opera of Korea, Rossini Opera<br />
Festival and Liceu Barcelona, Opernhaus Zurich,<br />
Opera de Nice and Opera Ireland. She has also<br />
choreographed extensively in theatre for the<br />
Abbey Theatre, Landmark Productions, Lyric<br />
Theatre Belfast, Siren Productions and The<br />
Gate Theatre.<br />
In 2020 Liz was elected to Aosdána.<br />
Elaine Kelly is the resident<br />
conductor and chorus director of<br />
Irish National Opera. In 2023 she<br />
conducted the world premieres<br />
of Emma O’Halloran’s double bill,<br />
Mary Motorhead and TRADE at<br />
the PROTOTYPE Festival New York and LA Opera,<br />
and Evangelia Rigaki’s Old Ghosts in Dublin. She<br />
also conducted the premiere of David Coonan’s<br />
youth opera, Horse Ape Bird in 2022. In 2020 she<br />
conducted nine new works by Irish composers in<br />
INO’s internationally praised 20 Shots of Opera as<br />
well as the film of Amanda Feery’s A Thing I Cannot<br />
Name, which was streamed as part of the West Cork<br />
Literary Festival in July 2021. After her appointment<br />
as INO’s resident conductor she conducted a tour<br />
of Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse and, most<br />
recently, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Gounod’s Faust<br />
at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. She has also worked<br />
for INO on productions of Rossini’s La Cenerentola,<br />
Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, Puccini’s<br />
La bohème, Strauss’s Elektra, Gerald Barry’s Alice’s<br />
Adventures Under Ground, Beethoven’s Fidelio,<br />
Bizet’s Carmen, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Rossini’s<br />
William Tell, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and for<br />
Opéra National de Bordeaux on Donizetti’s L’elisir<br />
d’amore. In March 2022 she led the National<br />
Symphony Orchestra’s International Women’s Day<br />
Concert, and has also conducted the RTÉ Concert<br />
Orchestra, Cork Concert Orchestra, and Cork Opera<br />
House Concert Orchestra. She was music director<br />
with the Dublin Symphony Orchestra (2017–19)<br />
and the University of Limerick Orchestra (2019–21).<br />
Chris is a director based in<br />
Dublin, working in opera and<br />
theatre. He holds a Bachelor of<br />
Music from DIT and a MA in Theatre<br />
Practice from The Gaiety School<br />
of Acting and UCD. Directing<br />
credits include Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Viardot’s<br />
Cendrillon (Irish premiere), Humperdinck’s Hänsel<br />
und Gretel, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Purcell’s<br />
Dido and Aeneas, all with North Dublin Opera. For<br />
Irish National Opera, he has been assistant director<br />
on Rossini’s William Tell, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier,<br />
Massenet’s Werther and Puccini’s La bohème. For<br />
Opera Collective Ireland, he was assistant director<br />
on Britten’s Owen Wingrave, Raymond Deane’s<br />
Vagabones, Handel’s Semele and Jonathan Dove’s<br />
Flight. Theatre credits include Suicide Tuesday with<br />
Little Shadow Theatre Company, I Am (GSA), Unicorns<br />
Are Real (Jellybelly), and his own adaptation of Alice in<br />
Wonderland (Skerries Soundwaves Festival). He also<br />
wrote and co-directed Twenty Minutes From Nowhere<br />
with Crave Productions and Bewley’s Cafe Theatre,<br />
which has been performed in venues nationwide.<br />
Mark Lawson was born in Mason<br />
City, Iowa. After a year at the<br />
Juilliard School, he was a student<br />
of George Katz at Drake University,<br />
Gary Graffman at the Manhattan<br />
School of Music, and Nelita True at<br />
the University of Maryland and the Eastman School of<br />
Music. After receiving his doctorate from the Eastman<br />
School of Music, he moved to New York City, where he<br />
worked as a freelance pianist for three years before<br />
joining the Yale Opera as a pianist and coach. While<br />
at Yale, he learned German, and in 1997 he joined the<br />
music staff at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany.<br />
Two years later he auditioned in Munich at the<br />
Bavarian State Opera for Zubin Mehta, and from<br />
1999 until 2017 was on the music staff there.<br />
In those eighteen years, he worked with all of the most<br />
famous singers in the world and many of the most<br />
famous conductors. In 2017 he left the Bavarian State<br />
Opera to have more time for freelance projects, and<br />
has since divided his time between the Stopera in<br />
Amsterdam, the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he<br />
has a part time contract, and yearly productions<br />
at the Bavarian State Opera. In addition, he has<br />
worked regularly with the Young Singers Group at<br />
the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Besides traveling<br />
with the Bavarian State Opera to Tokyo and Hong<br />
Kong, he has also worked in London, Paris, Tel Aviv,<br />
Salzburg, Prague, Glyndebourne and Bayreuth.<br />
32<br />
33
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
CHRISTOPHER BOWEN<br />
TENOR<br />
FIRST JEW<br />
SINEAD CAMPBELL WALLACE<br />
SOPRANO<br />
SALOME<br />
JULIAN CLOSE<br />
BASS<br />
FIRST SOLDIER<br />
DOREEN CURRAN<br />
MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />
PAGE OF HERODIAS<br />
Tenor Christopher Bowen, originally<br />
from New Zealand, moved to Dublin<br />
from London in 2020. He made<br />
his INO debut in 2023 creating the<br />
role of James Joyce in Evangelia<br />
Rigaki’s Old Ghosts. Other opera<br />
appearances include Bill in Jonathan Dove’s Flight<br />
and the Queen in Will Todd’s Alice in Wonderland<br />
for Opera Collective Ireland, Samuel Beckett in<br />
Tom Smail’s Blue Electric and a staging of Britten’s<br />
Canticles. He was Rawley Beaunes in Alasdair<br />
Nicolson’s The Iris Murder at the Orkney Festival,<br />
the Black Monk in Peter Maxwell Davies’s Taverner<br />
for BBC Radio 3, and has taken the title role in<br />
Charpentier’s Actéon. In concert, he recently gave the<br />
world premiere of Ina Boyle’s Lament for Bion. Other<br />
performances include Purcell’s The Indian Queen at<br />
Stour festival, Handel’s Solomon at the Dublin Handel<br />
Festival, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Handel’s<br />
Messiah with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and with<br />
the Dunedin Consort, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with<br />
the Academy of Ancient Music and the BBC Singers,<br />
and Bach’s St John Passion with the Hanover Band.<br />
He has also sung Haydn’s Creation, Elgar’s Dream of<br />
Gerontius and Britten’s War Requiem. He sang in the<br />
world premiere of Vaughan Williams’s A Cambridge<br />
Mass (which was recorded and later issued on CD),<br />
and has recorded song cycles by Lyell Cresswell for<br />
The Art of Black and White, Purcell duets for The<br />
Hibernian Muse with the Irish Baroque Orchestra,<br />
Delius’s Song of the High Hills and Janáček’s<br />
Excursions of Mr Brouček.<br />
Sinéad Campbell Wallace started<br />
her career as a light-lyric soprano,<br />
and has moved into fuller dramatic<br />
repertoire, to roles including<br />
Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio, the<br />
title role in Strauss’s Ariadne auf<br />
Naxos, Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz, Helmwige<br />
in Wagner’s Die Walküre and Kaiserin in Strauss’s<br />
Die Frau ohne Schatten. She opened her 2023–24<br />
season with her house debut at the Opéra de Paris<br />
as Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin followed by her debut<br />
at the Opéra de Dijon as Leonore. Other season<br />
highlights include Foreign Princess in Christoph<br />
Loy’s new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka at the<br />
Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia; Gutrune in a<br />
concert performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung<br />
with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under<br />
Vladimir Jurowski; Brünnhilde in an extract from<br />
Götterdämmerung in concert at L’Auditori Barcelona<br />
under Ludovic Morlot; and Elsa at the Savonlinna<br />
Opera Festival, Finland. Future plans include<br />
appearances at Washington National Opera, Welsh<br />
National Opera and Opéra de Rouen. She has also<br />
sung the title role in Puccini’s Tosca with INO and<br />
with English National Opera (getting an Olivier Award<br />
nomination for outstanding achievement in opera),<br />
Bavarian State Opera, Canadian Opera, Tokyo<br />
Symphony Orchestra, Bozar in Brussels, La Seine<br />
Musicale in Paris, the Gstaad Menuhin and Grafenegg<br />
festivals in Switzerland and Austria, Barbican Centre,<br />
Royal Festival Hall, Garsington Opera and Aldeburgh<br />
Festival in the UK, and Wexford Festival Opera in<br />
Ireland. She is is a graduate of the DIT Conservatory of<br />
Music and Drama, the National Opera Studio and the<br />
Britten-Pears young artist programme.<br />
Julian Close began his career<br />
reading for a PhD in Applied<br />
Physics at University of Leeds,<br />
before studying at the Royal<br />
Northern College of Music. He<br />
has since appeared with major<br />
companies throughout the UK including The Royal<br />
Opera, London, English National Opera, Garsington<br />
Opera and Welsh National Opera, as well as with<br />
Dutch National Opera and at Teatro Colón, Buenos<br />
Aires. North American engagements have included<br />
projects at the Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota<br />
Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Pacific Symphony and<br />
Washington National Opera. Recent engagements<br />
have included Indra in Massenet’s Le Roi de<br />
Lahore for Dorset Opera Festival, Commendatore<br />
in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Saffron Opera Group,<br />
Talpa in Il tabarro and Simone in Gianni Schicchi in<br />
Puccini’s Il trittico for Scottish Opera and Hagen<br />
in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung for Longborough<br />
Festival Opera, as well as a return to the Metropolitan<br />
Opera as Sparafucile in Verdi’s Rigoletto. His future<br />
engagements include Hunding in Wagner’s Die<br />
Walküre and Hagen in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung<br />
for Longborough Festival Opera’s upcoming complete<br />
cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen. He is making his<br />
INO debut in <strong>Salome</strong>.<br />
Doreen Curran was born in Derry.<br />
Her opera roles include Ottavia in<br />
Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di<br />
Poppea, Carmen and Mercédès<br />
in Bizet’s Carmen, Blanche in<br />
Prokofiev’s The Gambler, Tamiri<br />
in Vivaldi’s Farnace, Zoë in Respighi’s La fiamma,<br />
Rosina in Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Ernestina in<br />
Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro, Cléone in Fauré’s<br />
Pénélope, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro,<br />
Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Kate in Gilbert &<br />
Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, Radamisto in Handel’s<br />
Radamisto, Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, Eduige<br />
in Handel’s Rodelinda, Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria<br />
rusticana, Second Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte,<br />
La Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Meg in Verdi’s<br />
Falstaff, Pauline in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades,<br />
Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Madame Flora in<br />
Menotti’s The Medium, The Mother in Humperdinck’s<br />
Hansel and Gretel, Mrs Noye in Britten’s Noyes<br />
Fludde, Mary in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Lady<br />
Macbeth’s Lady in waiting in Verdi’s Macbeth, Third<br />
Secretary to Mao in John Adams’s Nixon in China<br />
and Maurya in Vaughan Williams’s Riders to the<br />
Sea. She has worked with English National Opera,<br />
Glyndebourne, Garsington Opera, Opera Holland<br />
Park, Grange Park, Buxton, Landestheater Salzburg,<br />
Savoy Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Opera Theatre<br />
Company, Opera Ireland, Wexford Festival Opera,<br />
Aldeburgh Festival and made her INO debut as Suzuki<br />
in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in 2018. She has<br />
worked with the London Philharmonic, RTÉ Concert<br />
Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool<br />
Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic,<br />
and has given recitals in Ireland, England, France,<br />
Germany and the USA.<br />
34<br />
35
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
EOGHAN DESMOND<br />
BARITONE<br />
FIFTH JEW<br />
LUKAS JAKOBSKI<br />
BASS<br />
SECOND SOLDIER<br />
IMELDA DRUMM<br />
MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />
HERODIAS<br />
ANDREW MASTERSON<br />
TENOR<br />
SECOND JEW<br />
Eoghan Desmond is a baritone<br />
from Cork. His oratorio repertoire<br />
includes Mendelssohn’s Elijah and<br />
Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Handel’s<br />
Messiah and Alexander’s Feast,<br />
Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St<br />
John Passion, Mass in B minor, Magnificat, Christmas<br />
Oratorio, Graun’s Der Tod Jesu, Vaughan Williams’s<br />
Hodie, Willow-Wood, Five Mystical Songs, Fantasia<br />
on Christmas Carols, and the Requiems of Brahms,<br />
Duruflé, Fauré, Howells, Mozart and Verdi. He is an<br />
accomplished choral singer, a member of Chamber<br />
Choir Ireland, and a regular guest with choirs<br />
including the BBC singers and I Fagiolini. Outside<br />
of his singing work, he is a sought-after composer.<br />
Recent commissions include a song cycle entitled<br />
New Light, commissioned by tenor Conor Prendiville,<br />
and Nothing in Vain, a choral meditation which can<br />
be heard on a recently released disc by The Sixteen.<br />
He holds a PhD in Composition from The University<br />
of Aberdeen.<br />
Born in Poland, Lukas Jakobski<br />
studied at the Royal College of<br />
Music, and was a member of<br />
the Jette Parker Young Artist<br />
<strong>Programme</strong> at the Royal Opera<br />
House, Covent Garden. His<br />
engagements have included Apprentice in Berg’s<br />
Wozzeck, Peter Quince in Britten’s A Midsummer<br />
Night’s Dream and Hobson in Britten’s Peter Grimes<br />
at the Theater an der Wien; Abbot in Britten’s Curlew<br />
River, Voice of Neptune in Mozart’s Idomeneo and<br />
Pietro in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra<br />
de Lyon; Hobson in Peter Grimes at the Palau de<br />
les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia; Zuniga in Bizet’s<br />
Carmen and Colline in Puccini’s La bohème for<br />
Glyndebourne On Tour and INO, Nettuno/Antinoo/<br />
Tempo in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria<br />
at Drottningholm, the Commendatore in Mozart’s<br />
Don Giovanni for the Nederlandse Reisopera; Don<br />
Cassandro in Mozart’s La finta semplice for Classical<br />
Opera; Truffaldino in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos for<br />
the Warsaw Philharmonic. For Dutch National Opera,<br />
he has sung the Captain in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut,<br />
Tall Englishman in Shostakovich’s The Gambler, the<br />
Cook in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and<br />
the Doctor in Verdi’s Macbeth. Recent engagements<br />
have included Melchtal and Walter Furst in Rossini’s<br />
Guillaume Tell for Irish National Opera, Pistola in<br />
Verdi’s Falstaff for Grange Park Opera, Enrico in<br />
Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and the Commendatore<br />
in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Longborough Festival<br />
Opera, Dziemba in Moniuszko’s Halka at the Theater<br />
an der Wien, Penderecki’s St Luke Passion and<br />
Hobson in Peter Grimes for Polish National Opera<br />
and Opéra de Lyon.<br />
Imelda Drumm has enjoyed a<br />
successful international singing<br />
career as a soloist. She is a graduate<br />
of the National Opera Studio, London<br />
(1997), sponsored by Glyndebourne<br />
Festival Opera, and the Royal Irish<br />
Academy of Music, where she received her doctorate<br />
in 2017. For over 30 years she has forged strong<br />
relationships with opera companies in the UK and<br />
here in Ireland. She made her INO debut as Amneris<br />
in Verdi’s Aida at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in<br />
2018. Other INO roles include the title role in Conor<br />
Linehan’s The Patient Woman as part of 20 Shots of<br />
Opera in 2020, Klytämnestra in Strauss’s Elektra in<br />
2021 and Hedwige in Rossini’s William Tell in 2022.<br />
She studied singing with Veronica Dunne, and is staff<br />
lecturer in vocal pedagogy and singing at the Royal<br />
Irish Academy of Music. She takes a keen interest in<br />
vocal pedagogy, particularly the method of singing<br />
influenced by the Italian school of bel canto. Her<br />
doctoral research investigated the action of female<br />
reproductive hormones on professional classical<br />
singers and is available in TARA, the open access,<br />
online research repository at Trinity College Dublin.<br />
Andrew Masterson is a lyric tenor<br />
from Omagh, Co. Tyrone, and a<br />
core member of the Irish National<br />
Opera Chorus. He sang his first role<br />
for the company last year as Der<br />
Wirt (Landlord) in Strauss’s Der<br />
Rosenkavalier. He is an alumnus of the Royal Northern<br />
College of Music, and graduated with distinction in<br />
both his Masters and Postgraduate Diploma. His<br />
desire to pursue a career in vocal music derived from<br />
his Bachelor of Music degree at Queen’s University<br />
Belfast. Venues he has performed in include the Royal<br />
Albert Hall in London, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in<br />
Dublin, the Grieghallen in Bergen, Oslo Opera House,<br />
and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. He has recently<br />
joined the Edvard Grieg Kor, which performed at the<br />
2023 BBC Proms with the London Philharmonic<br />
Orchestra under Edward Gardner. He is also a regular<br />
guest tenor in the chorus of Bergen Nasjonale Opera.<br />
He was one of last year’s recipients of a BBC NI and<br />
Arts Council NI Young Musicians’ Platform Award,<br />
supported by the UK National Lottery.<br />
36 37
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
ALEX McKISSICK<br />
TENOR<br />
NARRABOTH<br />
KEVIN NEVILLE<br />
BASS<br />
A CAPPADOCIAN<br />
AARON O’HARE<br />
TENOR<br />
FOURTH JEW<br />
WILLIAM PEARSON<br />
TENOR<br />
THIRD JEW<br />
American tenor Alex McKissick has<br />
sung leading roles in Bernstein’s<br />
Candide, Puccini’s La bohème,<br />
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Verdi’s<br />
Otello, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte<br />
and Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von<br />
Atlantis among others, performing with Washington<br />
National Opera, Aspen Music Festival, San Diego<br />
Opera, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines<br />
Metro Opera, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Wolf<br />
Trap Opera, North Carolina Opera, and the Georg<br />
Solti Accademia, working with conductors Eun Sun<br />
Kim, Daniele Callegari, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Yves Abel,<br />
Steven Mercurio, Nicole Paiement, as well as stage<br />
directors David Alden, Francesca Zambello, Tomer<br />
Zvulun, and Octavio Cardenas. He has participated<br />
in masterclasses with Fabio Luisi and Emmanuel<br />
Villuame, and he recorded Bernstein’s Songfest,<br />
conducted by James Judd, on the Naxos label. He<br />
received his Bachelors of Music and Masters degree<br />
from the Juilliard School of Music and is an alumnus<br />
of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington<br />
National Opera.<br />
Kevin Neville is a bass from<br />
Limerick city. While on the Northern<br />
Ireland Opera Studio, he played<br />
Don Alfonso in a reduced version<br />
of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. At the<br />
Blackwater Valley Opera Festival<br />
and Mananan International Festival of Music he<br />
played the Regent in Balfe’s The Sleeping Queen.<br />
He made his debut with Irish National Opera in<br />
Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Since then he has<br />
gone on to play L’ufficiale del Registro in Puccini’s<br />
Madama Butterfly as well as Lerchenau’s servant and<br />
Boots in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. He created the<br />
roles of George de La Hare in Fiona Linnane’s No. 2<br />
Pery Square and Old George in Robert Ely’s 1936:<br />
Fishing for the Tête à Tête contemporary opera festival<br />
in London. He has performed as a concert soloist<br />
at the National Concert Hall, St Patrick’s Cathedral,<br />
Dublin, Ulster Hall, Belfast, and the University Concert<br />
Hall, Limerick, in repertoire that included Handel’s<br />
Messiah as well as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Die erste<br />
Walpurgisnacht.<br />
Irish tenor Aaron O’Hare<br />
transitioned from baritone in<br />
2021. Last year he sang Spoletta<br />
in Puccini’s Tosca for Northern<br />
Ireland Opera, having spent most<br />
of the year touring with English<br />
Touring Opera. As an associate artist with Welsh<br />
National Opera, he sang the title role in Mozart’s<br />
Don Giovanni on tour, Stárek in Janáček’s Jenůfa<br />
and March Hare/White Knight in Will Todd’s Alice’s<br />
Adventures in Wonderland. In 2021 he also sang<br />
Schaunard in Puccini’s La bohème for Northern<br />
Ireland Opera and in the premiere of Michael Gallen’s<br />
Elsewhere, an opera about the Monaghan Soviet<br />
of 2019, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He joined<br />
Garsington Opera’s Alvarez Young Artists’ programme<br />
in 2016 and was a member of Opera Holland Park<br />
Young Artists in 2018. He played Mike in John<br />
Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw<br />
the Sky for Opéra National de Lyon’s Opera Studio in<br />
2020.<br />
William completed his MA in<br />
Opera Performance from the David<br />
Seligman Opera School at the Royal<br />
Welsh College of Music and Drama<br />
along with his BMus (Hons) in Music<br />
Performance under the tutelage of<br />
Adrian Thompson. He was a member of INO’s core<br />
chorus in 2022–23, and played the role of Faninal’s<br />
Major Domo in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, as well as<br />
covering the roles of the Italian Tenor and Landlord.<br />
He is currently a member of the INO Opera Studio.<br />
His roles include Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte,<br />
Quint in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, the Mayor in<br />
Britten’s Albert Herring, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don<br />
Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di<br />
Siviglia and Don Basilio in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.<br />
As well as opera work, he is an avid oratorio and mass<br />
singer and regularly performs Mozart’s Requiem,<br />
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s<br />
St. Matthew Passion.<br />
38<br />
39
BIOGRAPHIES<br />
WYN PENCARREG<br />
BARITONE<br />
FIRST NAZARENE<br />
Welsh baritone Wyn Pencarreg<br />
studied at the Royal Northern<br />
College of Music where he won<br />
many prizes, scholarships and<br />
awards. He was also a winner of the<br />
Erich Vietheer Memorial Award from<br />
Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Operatic roles include<br />
Alcindoro in Puccini’s La bohème, Padre Sansón in<br />
Thomas Adés’s The Exterminating Angel and Flemish<br />
Deputy in Verdi’s Don Carlos for The Royal Opera;<br />
Le Sire de Béthune in Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes,<br />
Sir Walter Raleigh in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux<br />
and Alcade in Verdi’s La forza del destino for Welsh<br />
National Opera; Surin in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen<br />
of Spades for English National Opera; Sharpless in<br />
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall,<br />
and Donner in Wagner’s Das Rheingold (Longborough<br />
Festival Opera). He has also performed roles for Opera<br />
North, Glyndebourne, Grange Park Opera, Opéra<br />
de Monte-Carlo and English Touring Opera. World<br />
premières include Papin in John Browne’s Babette’s<br />
Feast (Royal Opera House) and Lalchand<br />
in David Bruce’s The Firework-Maker’s Daughter<br />
(The Opera Group). He made his INO debut as Le<br />
Bailli in Massenet’s Werther last year.<br />
TÓMAS TÓMASSON<br />
BASS-BARITONE<br />
JOCHANAAN<br />
Following his studies in Reykjavík<br />
and London, Tómas Tómasson<br />
regularly guests at the most<br />
renowned houses and institutions,<br />
including the Royal Opera House,<br />
Covent Garden, Vienna State<br />
Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Semperoper Dresden,<br />
Berlin State Opera, La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera<br />
di Roma, Teatro Real de Madrid, Gran Teatre del<br />
Liceu, Barcelona, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels,<br />
Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, Lyric Opera<br />
of Chicago and Los Angeles Opera. His concert<br />
repertoire includes Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s<br />
Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Choral<br />
Symphony and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, and he<br />
has collaborated with conductors such as Riccardo<br />
Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Antonio Pappano, Andris<br />
Nelsons, Simone Young and René Jacobs. Recent<br />
highlights include his Wotan in Wagner’s Ring and<br />
Dikoj in Janáček’s Katya Kabanova at Grand Théâtre<br />
de Genève, Wotan in Die Walküre and Tomsky in<br />
Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at Teatro di<br />
San Carlo, Naples, Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal<br />
in Palermo, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila at<br />
Washington National Opera, and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s<br />
new production of Janáček’s The Makropulos Case<br />
at Zurich Opera House, the world premiere of Péter<br />
Eötvös’s Sleepless at the Berlin State Opera with<br />
revivals in Geneva and Budapest, Orest in Strauss’s<br />
Elektra at Opéra Bastille, Paris, and for INO, Napoleon<br />
in Prokofiev’s War and Peace and the title role in<br />
Aribert Reimann’s Lear at the Bavarian State Opera,<br />
Jochanaan in <strong>Salome</strong> in Tokyo, and most recently<br />
Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio at Berlin State Opera.<br />
VINCENT WOLFSTEINER<br />
TENOR<br />
HERODES<br />
Vincent Wolfsteiner is a versatile<br />
performer on both the concert<br />
and opera stages. His concert<br />
repertoire extends to works as<br />
diverse as Beethoven’s Symphony<br />
No. 9 (Choral), Mendelssohn’s<br />
Elijah, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Mahler’s Symphony<br />
No. 8 and Das Lied von der Erde. Notable opera<br />
appearances include Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan<br />
und Isolde under Daniel Barenboim, Herodes in<br />
Strauss’s <strong>Salome</strong> at the Staatsoper Unter den<br />
Linden in Berlin, and Siegmund in Wagner’s Die<br />
Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival. As a member of<br />
the Frankfurt Opera ensemble, he has sung a wide<br />
range of leading tenor roles, including Wagner’s Ring<br />
cycle, Tristan und Isolde and Lohengrin, Britten’s<br />
Peter Grimes and Verdi’s Otello. Conductors he has<br />
worked with also include Sebastian Weigle, Christoph<br />
Gedschold, Cornelius Meister, and Thomas Guggeis.<br />
His recent projects include performances in Wagner’s<br />
Tannhäuser at the Berlin State Opera, Penderecki’s<br />
The Devils of Loudon at the Bavarian State Opera in<br />
Munich, and Siegmund/Siegfried in concert versions<br />
of Wagner with Marek Janowski and the Dresdner<br />
Philharmonie as well as the Emperor in Strauss’s<br />
Die Frau ohne Schatten. Through Paul in Korngold’s<br />
Die Tote Stadt, he recently added another demanding<br />
dramatic tenor role to his repertoire. He is making his<br />
INO debut in <strong>Salome</strong>.<br />
KEEP THE<br />
MEMORIES!<br />
Our recording of the 2021<br />
concert performance is available<br />
to purchase in the foyer.<br />
Or online from<br />
www.prestomusic.com<br />
/classical/products/9313458--la-boheme<br />
40<br />
41
INO ORCHESTRA<br />
The Irish National Opera Orchestra, which performs in<br />
all of INO’s larger productions, is made up of leading<br />
Irish freelance musicians. Members of the orchestra<br />
have a broad range of experience playing operatic,<br />
symphonic, chamber and new music repertoire. The<br />
orchestra’s work includes Strauss’s Elektra in 2021<br />
and Der Rosenkavalier in 2023 (“delivers all the<br />
swelling romanticism and range of tone and colour<br />
you could ask for,” Irish Examiner). It is equally at<br />
home in music by Donizetti and Rossini (“wonderful<br />
energy and musical vision,” Bachtrack in 2022<br />
on Rossini’s William Tell) and Puccini (“the INO<br />
Orchestra handled the sweeping moods in masterly<br />
fashion,” the Business Post in 2023 on La bohème).<br />
The orchestra also performs chamber reductions<br />
for touring productions including, most recently,<br />
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (2022) and Massenet’s<br />
Werther (2023). The orchestra’s contemporary<br />
repertoire has included Thomas Adès’s Powder Her<br />
Face (2018), Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse (2021),<br />
and Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’s Least Like The<br />
Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy, in which<br />
it made its international debut at the Royal Opera<br />
House in London in 2023. The orchestra can be heard<br />
on the INO recording of Puccini’s La bohème on<br />
Signum Classics.<br />
FOUNDERS CIRCLE<br />
Anonymous<br />
Desmond Barry & John Redmill<br />
Valerie Beatty & Dennis Jennings<br />
Mark & Nicola Beddy<br />
Carina & Ali Ben Lmadani<br />
Mary Brennan<br />
Angie Brown<br />
Breffni & Jean Byrne<br />
Jennifer Caldwell<br />
Seán Caldwell & Richard Caldwell<br />
Caroline Classon, in memoriam<br />
David Warren, Gorey<br />
Audrey Conlon<br />
Gerardine Connolly<br />
Jackie Connolly<br />
Gabrielle Croke<br />
Sarah Daniel<br />
Maureen de Forge<br />
Doreen Delahunty & Michael Moriarty<br />
Joseph Denny<br />
Kate Donaghy<br />
Marcus Dowling<br />
Mareta & Conor Doyle<br />
Noel Doyle & Brigid McManus<br />
Michael Duggan<br />
Catherine & William Earley<br />
Jim & Moira Flavin<br />
Ian & Jean Flitcroft<br />
Anne Fogarty<br />
Maire & Maurice Foley<br />
Roy & Aisling Foster<br />
Howard Gatiss<br />
Genesis<br />
Hugh & Mary Geoghegan<br />
Diarmuid Hegarty<br />
M Hely Hutchinson<br />
Gemma Hussey<br />
Kathy Hutton & David McGrath<br />
Nuala Johnson<br />
Susan Kiely<br />
Timothy King & Mary Canning<br />
J & N Kingston<br />
Kate & Ross Kingston<br />
Silvia & Jay Krehbiel<br />
Karlin Lillington & Chris Horn<br />
Stella Litchfield<br />
Jane Loughman<br />
Rev Bernárd Lynch & Billy Desmond<br />
Lyndon MacCann S.C.<br />
Phyllis Mac Namara<br />
Tony & Joan Manning<br />
R. John McBratney<br />
Ruth McCarthy, in memoriam Niall<br />
& Barbara McCarthy<br />
Petria McDonnell<br />
Jim McKiernan<br />
Tyree & Jim McLeod<br />
Jean Moorhead<br />
Sara Moorhead<br />
Joe & Mary Murphy<br />
Ann Nolan & Paul Burns<br />
F.X. & Pat O’Brien<br />
James & Sylvia O’Connor<br />
John & Viola O’Connor<br />
Joseph O’Dea<br />
Dr J R O’Donnell<br />
Deirdre O’Donovan & Daniel Collins<br />
Diarmuid O’Dwyer<br />
Patricia O’Hara<br />
Annmaree O’Keefe & Chris Greene<br />
Carmel & Denis O’Sullivan<br />
Líosa O’Sullivan & Mandy Fogarty<br />
Hilary Pratt<br />
Sue Price<br />
Landmark Productions<br />
Riverdream Productions<br />
Nik Quaife & Emerson Bruns<br />
Margaret Quigley<br />
Patricia Reilly<br />
Dr Frances Ruane<br />
Catherine Santoro<br />
Dermot & Sue Scott<br />
Yvonne Shields<br />
Fergus Sheil Sr<br />
Gaby Smyth<br />
Matthew Patrick Smyth<br />
Bruce Stanley<br />
Sara Stewart<br />
The Wagner Society of Ireland<br />
Julian & Beryl Stracey<br />
Michael Wall & Simon Nugent<br />
Brian Walsh & Barry Doocey<br />
Judy Woodworth<br />
42<br />
43
INO FUTURE LEADERS<br />
NETWORK<br />
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA IS A GREAT<br />
WAY TO MEET PEOPLE AND EXPAND<br />
YOUR NETWORK.<br />
This new initiative is tailored to young<br />
professionals across a variety of industries<br />
looking for an enjoyable way to expand<br />
their professional network.<br />
FRI 17 – FRI 31 MAY <strong>2024</strong><br />
WEXFORD NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE<br />
DUBLIN GAIETY THEATRE<br />
CORK CORK OPERA HOUSE<br />
TICKETS FROM €15<br />
find out more at irishnationalopera.ie<br />
INO is a vibrant, dynamic company and our operas<br />
attract a broad and varied audience. Developing a<br />
robust network is crucial to a successful career and<br />
we have created a unique opportunity for professionals<br />
to meet and connect before an opera performance.<br />
With this network, we want to create a space for you to<br />
connect with individuals across a range of sectors, who<br />
have the potential to be your future colleagues, clients,<br />
customers or collaborators. We aim for this network to<br />
empower you to forge meaningful connections that can<br />
open doors to new opportunities, enhance your skill<br />
set, and broaden your perspective – all while enjoying<br />
a world-class opera performance!<br />
This initiative is proudly supported by a partnership<br />
with Spencer Lennox.<br />
To sign up to this network, or if your company<br />
is interested in hosting an event for the<br />
INO Future Leaders’ Network, please contact<br />
us on development@irishnationalopera.ie<br />
or +353 1 6794962<br />
Photo: Aisling McCaffrey and Guillaume Auvray<br />
at INO Future Leaders event,<br />
November 2023.<br />
Photographer: Mark Stedman.<br />
45
ACCESS AND INNOVATION<br />
WELCOMING NEW AUDIENCES WITH TECHNOLOGY<br />
At Irish National Opera, we’re reimagining the boundaries of opera in the digital age.<br />
Our innovative ‘Isolde’ project is one such example, offering a groundbreaking<br />
platform for the synchronisation of visuals and audio on people’s own devices,<br />
giving audiences the opportunity to use their own mobile phones with a projected<br />
or screened performance in public or site-specific locations.<br />
With its user-friendly interface across mobile, desktop, and cloud applications, Isolde replaces<br />
amplified audio equipment. We’re excited about the implications that Isolde will have for the<br />
wider cultural sector and as we continue to develop this software, we aim to explore applications<br />
for museums and galleries through auto synced audio guides and audio descriptions for the<br />
visually impaired in theatre settings.<br />
Combining this cutting-edge technology and an interdisciplinary approach creates a space<br />
for opera at the intersection of digital innovation and the performing arts. This fresh and<br />
forward-thinking approach brings vibrancy to a timeless art form, allowing new audiences<br />
to be captivated by everything that opera has to bring.<br />
Other recent innovations include our award-winning, virtual reality community opera, Out of<br />
the Ordinary/As an nGnách, which was created by communities in different parts of the country,<br />
from Inis Meáin to Tallaght. It was created in collaboration with composer Finola Merivale,<br />
librettist Jody O’Neill and director Jo Mangan.<br />
Our 20 Shots of Opera, a set of 20 bite-sized operas were commissioned, filmed and streamed<br />
online within a matter of months, to deliver new opera experiences during the dark days of the<br />
lockdown in 2020.<br />
In 2021 we created a site-specific production of Strauss’s Elektra for Kilkenny Arts Festival in<br />
the spectacular setting of the city’s Castle Yard. Our acclaimed film productions have included<br />
Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (in partnership with London’s Royal Opera<br />
House), Peter Maxwell’s Davies’s The Lighthouse, and Amanda Feery’s A Thing I Cannot Name.<br />
At Irish National Opera, we believe opera is for everyone. By infusing our work with a pioneering<br />
spirit and cutting-edge technology, we invite an ever-growing audience to experience the<br />
dynamism of opera.<br />
Images: Clockwise from top,<br />
Photos 1 & 2, Screening of<br />
Brian Irvine’s Scorched Earth<br />
Trilogy at Trinity College Dublin,<br />
photos: Dumbworld; Screening<br />
of Peter Maxwell Davies’s The<br />
Lighthouse at Hook Head,<br />
photo: Pádraig Grant; Audience<br />
member at Finola Merivale’s<br />
virtual reality opera, Out of<br />
the Ordinary/As an nGnách, at<br />
Dublin Fridge Festival, photo:<br />
Simon Lazewski.<br />
46<br />
47
IRISH NATIONAL<br />
OPERA STUDIO<br />
STUDIO MEMBERS <strong>2024</strong><br />
DEIRDRE HIGGINS SOPRANO<br />
MEGAN O’NEILL SOPRANO<br />
MADELINE JUDGE MEZZO-SOPRANO<br />
WILLIAM PEARSON TENOR<br />
ALEX DOWLING COMPOSER<br />
MEDB BRERETON-HURLEY CONDUCTOR<br />
CHRIS KELLY DIRECTOR<br />
ADAM McDONAGH RÉPÉTITEUR<br />
The Irish National Opera Studio is key to delivering a core<br />
aspect of INO’s mission, the development of the very best<br />
operatic talent we can find in Ireland. The studio is the<br />
company’s artistic development programme. The membership<br />
is selected annually, and the studio provides specially tailored<br />
training, professional mentoring and high-level professional<br />
engagements for a group of individuals whose success will be<br />
key to the future development of opera in Ireland.<br />
Members of Irish National Opera Studio are involved in all<br />
of Irish National Opera’s productions, large and small. They<br />
sing onstage in roles or in the chorus, understudy lead roles<br />
– enabling them to watch and emulate great artists at work –<br />
and, for non-singing members, they join in the world of opera<br />
rehearsals as assistants.<br />
Studio members also receive individual coaching, attend<br />
masterclasses and receive mentorship from leading Irish and<br />
international singers and musicians. Brenda Hurley, Head of<br />
Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, London, is the vocal<br />
consultant who guides our singers throughout the year.<br />
Other areas of specific attention are performance and<br />
language skills, and members are assisted in their individual<br />
personal musical development and given professional career<br />
guidance. They benefit from Irish National Opera’s national<br />
and international contacts and Irish National Opera Studio<br />
also develops and promotes specially tailored events to help<br />
the members hone specific skills and showcase their work.<br />
For information contact Studio & Outreach Producer<br />
James Bingham at james@irishnationalopera.ie<br />
Dublin mezzo-soprano Aebh Kelly, a<br />
member of the Irish National Opera<br />
Studio in 2020–21, is currently a<br />
member of the Mascarade Opera<br />
programme in Florence. She appeared<br />
in Jenn Kirby’s Dichotomies of a<br />
Lockdown as part of INO’s 20 Shots<br />
of Opera in 2020. Last September<br />
she made her role debut as Olga in<br />
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at Theater<br />
Heidelberg, and she makes her role<br />
debut and INO stage debut as Flora<br />
Bervoix in Verdi’s La traviata in May.<br />
Image: Aebh Kelly at Teatro La Fenice, Venice, with<br />
Mascarade Emerging Artists in May 2023.<br />
Photo Marco Borelli.<br />
48<br />
49
INO TEAM<br />
Pauline Ashwood<br />
Head of Planning<br />
James Bingham<br />
Studio & Outreach Producer<br />
Janaina Caldeira<br />
Bookkeeper<br />
Sorcha Carroll<br />
Communications Manager<br />
Aoife Daly<br />
Development Manager<br />
Diego Fasciati<br />
Executive Director<br />
Lea Försterling<br />
Digital Communications<br />
Executive<br />
Ciarán Gallagher<br />
Marketing Executive<br />
Sarah Halpin<br />
Digital Producer<br />
Cate Kelliher<br />
Business & Finance Manager<br />
Audrey Keogan<br />
Development Executive<br />
Anne Kyle<br />
Stage Manager<br />
Patricia Malpas<br />
Studio & Outreach Executive<br />
Gavin O’Sullivan<br />
Head of Production<br />
Muireann Sheahan<br />
Orchestra & Chorus Manager<br />
Fergus Sheil<br />
Artistic Director<br />
David Smith<br />
Accountant part time<br />
Paula Tierney<br />
Company Stage Manager<br />
RJ Walters-Dorchak<br />
Artistic Administrator<br />
Board of Directors<br />
Jennifer Caldwell Chair<br />
Tara Erraught<br />
Gerard Howlin<br />
Dennis Jennings<br />
Suzanne Nance<br />
Ann Nolan<br />
Davina Saint<br />
Bruce Stanley<br />
Jonathan Friend<br />
Artistic Advisor<br />
Elaine Kelly<br />
Resident Conductor<br />
Irish National Opera<br />
69 Dame Street<br />
Dublin 2 | Ireland<br />
T: 01–679 4962<br />
E: info@irishnationalopera.ie<br />
irishnationalopera.ie<br />
@irishnationalopera<br />
@irishnatopera<br />
@irishnationalopera<br />
Company Reg No.: 601853<br />
Registered Charity: 22403<br />
(RCN) 20204547<br />
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