Distinguished mezzo-soprano Ann Murray visits the NCH on January 15th on a rare visit here to sing Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Ete (The Nights of Summer) with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Anissimov. Later in the month, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, will visit the NCH for a programme which features Ives's Three Places in New England, Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony and Mendelssohn's violin concerto, with soloist Gil Shaham (January 20th). Opening on February 4th is Opera Theatre Company's production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, a co-production with the RTE Concert Orchestra and the National Chamber Choir. The cast will feature Iain Paton, Louise Walsh, Sam McElroy and Frances McCafferty, and the conductor is Richard Farnes.
James Conway directs and the designer is Joe Vanek.
In March, the Argentinian tenor Jose Cura, right, returns to the RDS (March 13th) for a gala concert with the NSO and soprano Cara O'Sullivan.
La traviata is one of the productions scheduled for Opera Ireland's spring season at the Gaiety Theatre, set to run from April 10th, with Regina Nathan, Jean-Pierre Furlan and Guido Paevatalu, ere. La traviata, conducted by Jerome Pillmann, directed by Stephan Groegler and designed by Veronique Seymot. It will alternate with Richard Strauss's gloriously decadent Salome, with Karen Notare in the title role. It will be, conducted by Laurent Wagner, directed by Joel Lawers and designed by Louis Desire.
May brings a treat for Handel fans when Opera Theatre Company presents his opera Rodelinda, featuring Helen Williams, Jonathan Peter Kenny and Nicholas Sears; James Conway conducts the London Baroque Sinfonia, and the show, which begins an Irish tour in Cork on April 30th, reaches Dublin on May 13th and 14th before transferring to Edinburgh on May 22nd. A musical and social event not to be missed, meanwhile, is the visit of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to the NCH (May 17th), when the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies will conduct the world premiere of his new work, Overture, and his violin concerto with Gyorgy Pauk as soloist.
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival runs from June 27th to July 4th, with this year's programme boasting the Arditti String Quartet, renowned interpreters of new music, and the award-winning period instruments group Quatuor Mosaiques. Opera Ireland will brighten up dull November days with Rossini's perennially sunny Barber of Seville and Mussorgsky's colourful Russian epic, Boris Godunov. A specially-commissioned new chamber opera by Raymond Deane, Wall of Cloud, is promised by Opera Theatre Company, also in November. ere of this new work It will be conducted by David Adams and directed by Jason Byrne.
Wexford Festival's three operas for 1999 will be Die Konigin Von Saba (The Queen of Sheba), by Karl Goldmark (1830-1915), Straszny Dwor (The Haunted Manor), by Stanislaw Moniuszko (1819-1872) and Siberia by Umberto Giordano (1867-1948). The festival opens on October 14th.
