Various venues, Belfast Until Oct 30 048-90971197 belfastfestival.com
LYRIC OPERA
NCH, Dublin Sat/Mon/Wed 7.30pm €20-€48 01-4170000
THE TRIUMPH OF BEAUTY AND DECEIT
NCH, Kevin Barry Room, Dublin Wed 8.30pm €15 01-4170000
SHIPWRECKED
Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co Meath Wed 8pm €15 046-9092300; Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin Thurs 8pm €17 01-2312929
The Ulster Orchestra's new principal conductor, JoAnn Falletta, takes on a programme of music from North America tonight at the opening of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's. It's a an American, Mexican and Argentinian affair, Marquez and Moncayo representing Mexico, Copland straddling the border (with his El Salón México), and Bernstein and Gershwin (including the Rhapsody in Bluewith Joanna MacGregor on piano) offering pure Americana. Piazzolla's Tangazoputs in an appearance on behalf of Argentina.
The musical line-up later includes singers Monica Groop and Kiri Te Kanawa, pianists Peter Jablonski, Cathal Breslin, Michael McHale and David Quigley, violinist Eugene Ugorski, the Danish String Quartet, Opera Theatre Company's production of Grigory Frid's The Diary of Anne Frank, and a concert by the Ulster Youth Choir with Paul McCreesh's Gabrieli Consort.
There's some other local operatic activity in Dublin in advance of the Wexford Festival. Vivian Coates's Lyric Opera presents three performances of Verdi's Il trovatoreat the NCH, with Miriam Murphy in the role of Leonora; and the Channel 4 TV production of Gerald Barry's The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit, first broadcast in 1995, is being screened at the NCH Kevin Barry Room by NewSoundWorlds.
That same night in Navan, Shipwrecked, an early music "cabaret oratorio" by the ensemble eX, begins a short tour that will later be seen in Dún Laoghaire, Newbridge, and at the Belfast Festival.
