Re-imagining Opera: Episode 3

Opera in Ireland has been going through something of a crisis. Last year the newly formed Irish National Opera Company closed just two years after its birth was announced due to financial cut-backs. Opera Ireland had been wound down to form it and Ireland was left with no national company and the loss of Opera Ireland. Today new roots are beginning to emerge including a new opera company called Wide Open Opera, launched by conductor Fergus Sheil. The Art Council is now supporting opera on a production rather than company basis and Wide Open Opera's first production, Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde, which was grant aided to the tune of €600,000, is the featured opera on RTE lyric fm this Saturday evening. A documentary on the production of Tristan & Isolde, the first in Ireland in some 50 years, goes out at 7pm on Friday.

While existing opera companies like Wexford, Lyric Opera and Opera Theatre Company are continuing to produce and thrive - they are all facing funding challenges. With a significantly reduced pot of money the Arts Council has shifted to production awards, one of which helped Lyric Opera stage Verdi’s Aida at the Gaiety Theatre last week but which have also brought in new players like Wide Open Opera whose first production, Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde was recently staged in Dublin or Everyman Theatre’s innovative staging of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in Cork. But is Ireland too small to support so many companies? And why do we need new initiatives?

This episode is the third in the series Re-imagining Opera and was broadcast on Wednesday 21st November at 1.45pm on RTÉ lyric fm. The series is an Athena Media production for RTÉ lyric fm made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.