The new Wexford Opera House, it seems, was finished in the nick of time and can now bask - briefly - in the almost universal approval of visiting critics, writes MICHAEL DERVAN
THE FIRST FESTIVAL in the new Wexford Opera House has been a resounding success. Critics have been falling over themselves as they reach for superlatives, to the point where even some indisputable short- comings have been glossed over. These are easily summarised.
Sight-lines are severely restricted in some seats in the boxes and are interrupted by a protective rail in some of the circle seats. Legroom has been compromised in those rows in the circle where the seats are not fitted snugly to the curvature of the building. And the use of two LCD monitors placed at the side of the stage for surtitles has not won universal approval.
In general, though, there's been hardly a bad word said about what Tom Service, in his Guardianclassical blog, has called a "jewel of a new opera house". The critics differ in their assessments of the productions, but agree on the success of the building.
Geoff Brown, in the London Times, wrote: "You could pick holes if you wanted: seating not kind to the back, icy drafts into parts of the auditorium when street doors are open. But they shrivel alongside the intimate feel, the radiant acoustic and the building's very existence."
For Tom Sutcliffe, in the Spectator, the house is "a brilliant achievement which matches, perhaps even challenges, the Glyndebourne experience - though Wexford is two-thirds the size and extravagantly intimate".
At the same time, Sutcliffe registers concerns about the lack of side or back stages "which might be needed if Wexford really became a permanent opera- and theatre-going tourist destination (like the Oregon Shakespeare Festival at Ashland in the far western United States), with perhaps a baroque opera spring festival and a summer season devoted to the neglected art of operetta".
The Sunday Times's Hugh Canning also invokes Glyndebourne, suggesting that the Sussex venue "pales in comparison to Ireland's new opera house", which "looks classier, sleeker, smarter and more intimate" and has acoustics that "sound something close to the ideal". The Daily Telegraph's Rupert Christiansen tempers his enthusiasm for the building with a caution about his sense "that the project has been underpinned by an unwarranted spirit of expansive financial optimism. Now that the bubble has burst, can the festival justify its splendid new premises by selling thousands of extra tickets for unknown operas with no-star casts? Clusters of empty seats on the opening nights suggest that it won't be easy."
In terms of the festival itself, the evidence is clear. In spite of the more than 40 per cent increase in seating, some 92 per cent of the seats were actually sold for the main operas, 89 per cent for the piano-accompanied ShortWorks presentations at Dun Mhuire, and more than 97 per cent for the concerts and recitals. Actual attendances, when you account for complimentary tickets, were higher.
Anthony Holden, in the Observer, was enthused by the "crystal-clear acoustic, spacious stage, comfortable seats, good sight-lines throughout the house, and local volunteers ensuring a warm welcome, even for the descendants of Cromwell".
The effect of walking in off a small sidestreet into an opera house that is "a model of discreet modernity" (Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday) is widely commented on. Michael White, writing in the Catholic Herald, adds: "Critically, it also sounds good, with a clean but strong acoustic that projects the voices and makes Wexford's orchestra (an Irish pick-up band) sound like the Berlin Philharmonic. At a stroke, the festival can be what it's always tried to be: world class."
Even Peter Murphy's Blog of Revelations on hotpress.com rowed in with the view that "if it's not vulgar to say so in the current recessive climate, it was worth every penny". Money, of course, is likely to be the festival and the opera house's major ongoing headache. The Arts Council remains in a parlous state.
As a receiving venue, the new opera house will be affected by any cutbacks which have an impact on the supply of touring productions. The festival itself may not remain unscathed at a time when public funding decisions that have already been made seem to be open to downward revision.
And there's still that small matter of €2.4 million to be raised to meet the festival's own €7 million contribution to the building of the highly praised new opera house.
