The Arts Review​

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

Leyla Gu and dancers in Iris. Image, Padraig Grant **** When it comes to opera, who’d want to be a woman? It so rarely ends well, especially for the virtuous. Pietro Mascagni’s 1898 opera Iris, with libretto by Luigi Illica, another case in point. The childlike Iris a Japanese woman destroyed by her beauty. Not by masculine vanity, greed, or lust, nor by a society which rendered women as property to be possessed. No, Iris is damned by her girlish seductiveness that sees men h

Derbhle Crotty in visions by Eoghan Quinn. Image Patricio Cassinoni ** A hallmark of Dublin Theatre Festival 2026 has been round-the-table read-throughs lazily insinuating themselves into several productions. Radio Bette, Animals and now Eoghan Quinn’s everything and the kitchen sink, visions. A guided meditation on Dublin then and now not to be undertaken while driving. Quinn’s storytelling memory play in three theatrical acts divided into a rehearsal read-through, followed