The operatic year begins brightly with the Bord Gais Millennium Opera Gala; promoter Barra O Tuama has promised a special treat for the year 2000, with the return of many of the artists who, having endeared themselves to Irish audiences over a decade of Opera Gala: Plus recital series, went on to achieve spectacular success on the international stage. Of these the undoubted star is the Russian baritone Sergei Leiferkus, whose glorious dark-chocolate voice and subtle acting skills have made him into one of the century's great singer-actors. Leiferkus interrupts his hectic spin around the opera houses of the world to sing a selection of Italian operatic favourites with tenor Gabriel Sade and soprano Mariana Colpos at the City Hall, Cork on Saturday, January 15th, University Concert Hall, Limerick on Wednesday 19th and the National Concert Hall, Dublin on Saturday, January 22nd.
If there's one thing guaranteed to brighten up the dark days of January and February, it's a new production of Mozart's bubbly masterpiece, The Marriage of Figaro, so thank heavens for Opera Theatre Company's extended tour of same, which will visit 15 towns around the country in a total of 19 performances. It will be directed by Brian Brady, who directed a stylish production of Beaumarchais's original at the Abbey a few years ago, and Susanna will be sung by the rising young Irish soprano Colette Delahunt, whose career is on a dramatic upward curve at the moment with engagements planned for, among other places, Glyndebourne and Opera North.
The artistic director of Opera Theatre Company, James Conway, says the thrust of the company's work in Ireland for the coming year will be towards the more popular side of the repertoire; thus the summer show will be a new arrangement of Donizetti's comedy L'Elisir d'Amore, (The Love Potion), which will run, says Conway, "through July and August at all the festivals from Errigal to, I hope, the Mullingar Bachelor Festival". Nemorino will be sung by Iain Paton, who made such a strong impression as Tom Rakewell in last year's The Rake's Progress, and the opera will be conducted from the accordion, "like an Italian folk band".
OTC will also revive its successful production of the children's opera Cinderella and premiere a new children's opera by composer Stephen Deazley with libretto by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne; and the company's production of Handel's Rodelinda goes on a UK tour in July, first to the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh and then to Cheltenham, Buxton and Aldeburgh Opera festivals.
Opera Ireland, meanwhile, has a hard act to follow after its superb recent production of Mussorgky's Boris Godunov; the company will continue its eastern theme for its spring season, with both Verdi's Egyptian opera, Aida, and Janacek's passionate tale of doomed love, Katya Kabanova, in the pipeline. Artistic director Dieter Kaegi says he's particularly happy at being able to put on the Janacek, which is being performed in Ireland for the first time with a full orchestra: "It took me some years to work out what Irish people like, but I have a good idea now, and I'm sure that Janacek as a composer will find a large following here. And Franzita Whelan, who sings Katya, began her career in the Opera Ireland chorus, so she has come full circle."
As for Aida, Kaegi and designer Bruno Schwengl will spend the first days of the new millennium locked in mortal combat with Verdi's gigantic score, seeking a dramatic concept which will work well on the intimate Gaiety stage - without elephants. Opera Ireland's spring season opens in April.
If it's October, it must be Wexford Festival Opera, which seems to have settled into an annual combination of Russian and Italian operatic offerings. The festival continues to play to packed houses, but last year's programming choices got artistic director Luigi Ferrari into hot water with the critics, so it will be interesting to see how this year's trio will be received. The opening piece will be Tchaikovsky's setting of Schiller's play about Joan of Arc, The Maid of Orleans, sung in Russian as Orleanskaya deva; next comes Adolphe Adam's comic romp based on a story from the Thousand and One Nights, Si J'Etais Roi (If I Were King), sung in French; and a Carmen lookalike opera from the Italian composer Riccardo Zandonai, whose I Cavalieri di Ekebu, set in the unpromising surroundings of a Swedish iron foundry, was the surprise hit of 1998.
No doubt Luigi Ferrari will be hoping for a similar success from Conchita, the tale of a cigarette factory work turned erotic dancer who finds happiness with a Good Man. Wexford Festival Opera opens on October 19th and runs until November 5th.