THE programme for the 45th Wexford Festival was announced yesterday at a reception in Guinness's Brewery in Dublin. The operas will be Parisina by Gaetano Donizetti, a melodrama set in 15th century Italy, L'Etoile du Nord by Giacomo Meyerbeer, a love story set in Finland and Russia at the time of Peter the Great, and Sdrka by Zdenek Fibich, a romantic tragedy set in pagan Bohemia.
A development at this year's festival will be a series of 90 minute versions of four popular operas from the standard operatic repertoire, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Puccini's La Bohe me and Massenet's Werther.
These opera scenes will replace the popular programmes of operatic excerpts of previous years.
Announcing details of the programme, the festival's artistic director, Luigi Ferrari, said the chosen theme of "Bohemian rhapsody" would continue throughout the ancillary concerts and recitals, which will include generous helpings from Dvorak, Smetana, Bartok and Janacek.
The festival runs from October 17th to November 3rd and booking opens on Tuesday. Details from the festival office at 053 22144.