Wexford Festival names new artistic director

Wexford Festival Opera has appointed American conductor David Agler to succeed Italian Luigi Ferrari as artistic director

Wexford Festival Opera has appointed American conductor David Agler to succeed Italian Luigi Ferrari as artistic director. Gerry Smyth reports.

Agler's career has followed a notable international path: he has previously served as music director at Vancouver Opera, principal conductor at Australian Opera and resident conductor with the San Francisco Opera.

He also has had an association with the prestigious Spoleto Festival as conductor and administrator. His first Wexford programme will be the 2005 festival.

Agler has already participated in the Wexford Festival as a guest conductor in 1996 when he conducted Sarka and in 2000 when he conducted Si J'Etais Roi.

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The festival chairman, Mr Paul Hennessy, said on those occasions he impressed many with his dedication and commitment and that his international experience provided him with artistic leadership skills which would "help to ensure that Wexford continues to thrive".

Agler said he was honoured to succeed Ferrari whose final festival as artistic director opens on October 14th.

Agler's other engagements with international companies include Opera der Stadt Koin; the Opera Festival of New Jersey; Santa Fe Opera; Seattle Opera; Netherlands Opera; Reggio Emilia and Pittsburgh Opera; and New York City Opera.

During his tenure in San Francisco he formed a new orchestra for the opera - a task which could help to inform his views on this aspect of the Wexford's needs and the current controversy over the use of musicians from Belarus.

A stalemate between RTÉ and the festival over the use of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has now gone into its fourth year, with protests marking the opening of last year's festival over the non-use of Irish musicians.

As music director in Vancouver, he received particular acclaim for productions from the 20th-century repertoire, but it is unlikely that his appointment, initially anyway, will correspond to any radical departure from the Wexford tradition of staging lesser-known European works.