Fergus Sheil 
Pat O’Kelly
With conductor Fergus Sheil active as both artistic director of Wide Open Opera and Opera Theatre Company, it seemed a natural progression both companies would merge. And so they did. Formed last year, with generous beneficence from the Arts Council, the new company was launched under the banner of Irish National Opera.
With Sheil as music director, the new company’s own first production will be Mozart’s delightful ‘upstairs/downstairs’ intrigue The Marriage of Figaro. The piece opens at the National Opera House in Wexford on April 13 before transferring to Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre to run from April 17-20.
The promising cast includes Jonathan Lemalu and Tara Erraught as groom- and bride-to-be Figaro and Susanna, Ben McAteer and Máire Flavin as Count and Countess Almaviva and Aoife Miskelly as the besotted Cherubino.
However, before this Marriage INO has formed its own union with Northern Ireland Opera to offer the first performances in the Republic of English composer Thomas Adès’s remarkable Powder Her Face. This chamber piece, first seen at Cheltenham in 1995, when the composer was 24, has since had numerous productions on both sides of the Atlantic with favourable critical responses.
Powder Her Face is somewhat salacious in its portrayal of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993) whose nefarious exploits were the ‘stuff of scandal and gossip’. Maybe I need say no more but the production comes with a ‘suitable for over-16s only’ label.
While Powder Her Face has multifarious characters just four singers are needed to cover them. Soprano Mary Plazas is the notorious Duchess with the other roles shared by Daire Halpin, Adrian Dwyer and Stephen Richardson.
An old title
Already seen in Northern Ireland, Powder Her Face opens in Wexford this coming Saturday before travelling to Kilkenny on February 27, Navan on March 1, Sligo on March 3, Dublin’s O’Reilly Theatre on March 6 and 7 and finally Tralee on Friday, March 9.
It is interesting that the new company should revive an old title. An earlier Irish National Opera flourished for 20 years from 1965 to 1985. Under artistic director Tony O Dalaigh and with Veronica McSwiney as music director, the late Paddy Ryan had charge of production and design.
Criss-crossing the four provinces, the old INO visited 70 venues with 16 productions including the premières of AJ Potter’s The Wedding and James Wilson’s Twelfth Night. Among very many others, casts involved Mary Sheridan, Paddy Ring and Suzanne Murphy who, incidentally, will be the Marcellina in the forthcoming Marriage of Figaro.
The ambitious New Music Dublin runs mostly at the NCH from March 1-4. The eclectic programme includes two choral works by Scotland’s leading composer, and unashamed catholic, James MacMillan. He will direct his relatively short Credo as part of the RTÉCO’s opening concert and his longer Stabat Mater with Chamber Choir Ireland and the Irish Chamber Orchestra at St Ann’s Church in Dublin’s Dawson Street on March 2.
This is an unfortunate clash with Haydn’s striking Seven Last Words, which the Carolan String Quartet presents in Newman University Church at the same time. Would that bi-location were possible!
