Wexford Festival Opera Celebrates 2016 and Teases 2017 Season

The curtain fell on the 65th Wexford Festival Opera this evening as more than 850 people including audience, cast, crew and volunteers all joined hands and sang 'Auld Lang Syne' in harmony bringing the world-renowned international festival to a theatrical close.

Over the past 12 days over 23,000 tickets were issued for 54 separate events which ranged from evening performances, to ShortWorks daytime operas, to the ever-popular gala night. This year's Festival saw a continued increase in ticket sales with many events sold-out months in advance for the second consecutive year. Other highlights of the year include:

· Three critically-acclaimed main evening opera productions

· Four nominations from the International Opera Awards, including 'Best Festival'

· Four live broadcasts of the operas via RTÉ lyric fm and BBC Radio 3 reaching millions of

listeners worldwide

· The CD and download release of the 2015 production of Guglielmo Ratcliff by Mascagni on

the RTÉ lyric label

"Wexford Festival Opera's brilliant new production..... A personal triumph for Wexford's artistic director, David Agler, who knew both Barber and Menotti, this is one of the best-staged productions in the history of this Irish festival to lost operatic causes ..." Daily Telegraph

"The find of the evening in [Andrew] Haji a lovely high tenor with impeccable musical diction..." The Times

"It helps that Wexford has assembled a superb cast...." - The Arts Desk

In addition, two bursaries were awarded and presented to two of this year's gifted young singers. The first, The Aria Friends' Bursary was awarded to Canadian mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule, as nominated by Aria Friends of Wexford Festival Opera. The second bursary awarded, The Gerard Arnhold Award, went to Belfast mezzo-soprano, Sarah Richmond. This award, generously donated by Anthony Arnhold, is in memory of his father, Gerard Arnhold, who was a long-time patron and supporter of Wexford Festival Opera.

Addressing the audience from the stage of the National Opera House on the final night, Artistic Director David Agler announced the repertoire for the 66th Wexford Festival Opera, which will run for 18 days, beginning on Thursday, 19 October and running until Sunday, 5 November 2017:

Medea by Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) 19, 22, 28 October, 3 November

Margherita by Jacopo Foroni (1825-1858) 20, 26, 29 October / 1, 4 November

Risurrezione by Franco Alfano (1875-1954) 21, 27 30 October / 2, 5 November

Creative teams, cast and details of other programme events will be announced in the coming months.

Booking for Wexford Festival Opera 2017:

Priority booking for Friends of Wexford Festival Opera opens on Saturday, 25 March and on Saturday, 1 April (depending on level of membership). General booking opens on Saturday, 15 April 2017. For more information on how to become a Friend of Wexford Festival Opera and avail of priority booking plus many other benefits throughout the year, visit www.wexfordopera.com/friends

The 65th Wexford Festival Opera was supported by grants from the Arts Council, Wexford County Council and Fáilte Ireland.