Today Wexford Festival Opera and the Community Foundation highlighted how important it is to support, with creative and professional opportunities, those working both on and off the stage, as they celebrated the new contingent of repetiteurs and the first stage managers to take part in the WFO development Academy – the Wexford Factory.
The Wexford Factory programme was designed to mentor young singers through masterclasses led by internationally recognised artists and professionals. The artists also have the chance to perform in the festival. This was initially for only singers but two years ago was expanded to include repetiteurs and now this year, for the first time, includes stage managers.
The Community Foundation play a key role in helping the festival to make places in the development academy available to both repetiteurs and stage managers.
This year the pianists taking part will be Frasier Hickland, Declan Murphy and Doireann O’Carroll.
The stage managers will be Jasper Cahill and Amelia Hauer and will both work directly with experienced experts in the field from around the world as well as the WFO professional stage management team on one of the main stage operas to learn all the skills involved in staging a production. They will also have ongoing support and network development put
in place to help guide their career and opportunities working directly with our Technical Director and dedicated crew to learn the skills by doing them first-hand.
Wexford Factory is sponsored by PwC, The programme is also supported by The Arnhold Foundation and its repetiteur and stage professional branches by The Community Foundation Ireland. Wexford Factory is an international collaboration, with TUD (Technological University Dublin), RIAM (Royal Irish Academy of Music) and the Rossini Opera Festival “Alberto Zedda” Academy, Pesaro.
About WFO 2024: Booking is now open for the 2024 Wexford Festival Opera, running from 18 October until 2 November 2024. Artistic director Rosetta Cucchi’s 2024 programme is built around the intriguing theme of ‘Theatre within Theatre,’ offering a glimpse into the world behind the curtain. Showcasing 70 events over 16 days the programme includes three main stage operas – Le maschere by Pietro Mascagni, The Critic by Charles Villiers Stanford and Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali by Gaetano Donizetti. The programme also includes two Pocket Operas – including a newly commissioned opera by Colm Tóibín and Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love an immersive community opera, 13 lunchtime recitals, a choral recital with New Dublin Voices, the annual gala concert of festival favourites and an evening with the RTE Concert Orchestra. Talks include another ‘Impossible Interview’ and the annual Dr. Tom Walsh Lecture.
