The Arts Review​

The Rose of Castile. Image uncredited. ***** It might be a 19th-century opera, but under Heather Hadrill’s excellent direction, Michael William Balfe’s The Rose of Castile gets a generational facelift. The Irishman’s 1857 opera, chosen for the inaugural Wexford Festival Opera in 1951, transformed into a 1920s Hal Roach, Laurel and Hardy-style comedy. A Depression-era love story of queens and commoners, flappers and disguises, comic misunderstandings and political intrigue tha

Much Ado About Nothing. Image, uncredited. ** The second of two pocket operas celebrating Irish composers at Wexford Festival Opera 2026, Charles Villiers Stanford’s 1901 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is much loved but little revived. Libretto by Julian Sturgis again confirming why no one would want to be a virtuous woman in an opera. Unsubstantiated accusations enough to declare the lovesick Hero (soprano Victoria Harley) guilty till proven innocent. Com

Gurgen Baveyan, Maria Barakova and Stefan Astakhov in L’equivoco stravagante. Image, Padraig Grant **** As part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, Wexford Festival Opera invited the public to vote for one opera they’d like to see staged as part of this year’s festival. Their choice, surprising to some, was L’equivoco stravagante. An 1811 dramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini, with libretto by Gaetano Gasbarri. Rossini’s first large-scale opera written when he was only 19. A