There's a row in opera houses and theatres where brows furrow and pencils scribble. Such patrons are ubiquitous on opening nights. Occasionally, in poorly behaved members of the species, tutting is known to take place. On this particular evening, someone might have been heard to observe that it is notoriously difficult to create a real-life on-stage ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. They may have indicated, perhaps a little scornfully, that the miniature ship currently front of cloth may struggle to convey a flotilla. Later on stage, three men – composer Mr Dangle, librettist Mr Puff and critic Mr Sneer – wonder the same thing: this is the rehearsal of The Spanish Armada, an opera within Charles Villiers Stanford's The Critic. Sneer (Arthur Riordan) fails to live up to the nominative determinism and is genteel in his assessments of the unravelling farce. The critics around me agree – Wexford Festival Opera's new production of this lesser-heard work garnered universally positive notices.

The pleasingly meta 'critic watching a critic watching an opera' was part of Wexford's 'Theatre within Theatre' theme for this year's edition (18 October – 2 November). The Critic was one of three main stage productions featuring at Ireland's National Opera House alongside Donizetti's Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali and Mascagni's Le Mascagni. The quality of costumes was consistently high (faux Edwardian wigs and powdered Tudor faces aplenty in The Critic – and, in case you were wondering, a squadron of ships was convincingly conceived via comedic millinery) to match some superb singing. Bass-baritone Paolo Bordogna delighted as 'diva mother of the diva' Agata in Le convenienze, teetering about in glamorous outfits and successfully pretending to sing badly. Wexford's production updates the 19th-century tradition of including music not written by the composer; tenor Guglielmo (Alberto Robert) turns up thinking he’s rehearsing for the show in The Sound of Music, further emphasising the self-conscious narrative structure.  

Stanford's The Critic at the Wexford Opera Festival 2024 | Credit: Patricio Cassinoni

The full-scale operas are accompanied by multiple chamber operas, recitals, lectures and other concerts, often featuring participants from the Wexford Factory, an academy for young Irish singers and répétiteurs. En route to such events, audience members can take in the charming shop-window displays that are curated in celebration of the festival (scrolled sheet music and artfully hung masks), possibly stopping by in one of several independent cafes for a flat white – or at a pub for a Guinness. The Viking town – known to some from the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan – embraces its long-standing commitment to opera, with discounts available to festival attendees at various establishments.

On to the Jerome Hynes Theatre – the smaller blackbox stage within the deceptively spacious National Opera House, which emerges seemingly from no-where, embedded within an unassuming high street. The star attraction here was Lady Gregory in America, a one-act new work by Alberto Caruso with a libretto by Colm Tóibín. Like Le convenienze, Lady Gregory is an opera about putting on a play; this time, the source material is rather more controversial. John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World was criticised by conservative forces for mocking the purity of Irish women, and a staging by Dublin's Abbey Theatre incited angry demonstrations and stink bombs thrown on stage when it toured to the US in 1911.

Lady Gregory follows the titular aristocrat as she accompanies the cast overseas, where, as Tóibín wittily observes, half of Dublin now calls home. This was a masterclass in creating new, bespoke opera – local jokes galore! – enhanced by standout performances by soprano Jane Burnell as Molly Allgood and mezzo Erin Fflur as a no-nonsense Augusta Gregory. The police who arrest the actors for their supposed indecency are asked whether they have read the play – their inevitable answer rings true with some of the book-burning furores seen today, over a century later. Plus ça change.

'The Viking town – known to some from the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan – embraces its long-standing commitment to opera'

Support of new (Lady Gregory) and overlooked (The Critic) opera has been part of Wexford's mission since the festival was set up in 1951. The annual series was one of several bold – and occasionally hare-brained – schemes hatched by Compton Mackenzie, founder of Opera Now's sister publication Gramophone. Over the years the festival has put on all sorts of rarities, from Bizet's La jolie fille de Perth to Zandonai's Conchita, and is now an international centre for opera. Its achievements over 73 years are in due in no small part to the work of its volunteers, many of whom remember the festival from their childhood. My airport transfer was undertaken by one such kind soul, who had helped out with the lighting during the early incarnations of the festival, before the team was enhanced by Glyndebourne technicians in the mid-century and now draws on staff from Ireland and beyond.

Rosetta Cucchi's production of The Elixir of Love | Photo: Padraig Grant

Community connections were further strengthened this year with a special English-language production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love, directed by Rosetta Cucchi, who has been artistic director at Wexford since 2020. The production was a collaborative project with a cast comprising various local arts groups and singers from the Wexford Factory. The Grain Store was turned into Adina's, a lively bar where the eponymous owner must grapple with overtures from Belcore and Nemorino. With T-Birds-style gang members, fifties fashion and a fabulous ring-master compère, this impressive piece brought happiness to its leads (who ended the opera cavorting in the store room) and promenading audience, who were deliciously close to the action throughout. 'You will laugh and cry, and above all you will feel part of this amazing game named Theatre,' writes Cucchi in her programme welcome note. At Wexford, the game is on – and it's one worth playing.

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