It started last night as many festivals do, with a fireworks display. But in every other respect Wexford Festival Opera is like no other event.
It's the only production, said the local chamber of commerce chief executive, Ms Emer Lovett, where you'll a find a Greek shipping magnate sitting alongside a farmer from Wexford.
This year's festival, the 49th, was opened by the chairman of the Arts Council, Mr Patrick J. Murphy, who said discussions were about to begin on the backing required to ensure it survived well beyond its 50th birthday.
The council allocated £550,000 to the festival which specialises in reviving unfairly neglected and sometimes long-forgotten operas.
Joining the shipping magnates and farmers at the Theatre Royal for the opening night's performance of Tchaikovsky's Orleans kaya deva (The Maid of Orleans) were the Minister for Arts, Culture, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms De Valera, and Ministers of State, Mr Hugh Byrne and Mr Tom Kitt.
Mr Kitt said he was "no expert" on opera but had not missed the event for 10 years. Former ministers Brendan Howlin and Ivan Yates, both Wexford men, were also in the audience for last night's performance of the opera which was first staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg on February 13th, 1881.
The other two operas being revived this year are Adolphe Adams's Si j'etais roi (If I were king), first performed in Paris in 1852, and Conchita, by Riccardo Zandonai, which had its first outing at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan in 1911.
The festival brings an estimated £12 to £15 million to the Wexford economy, said Ms Lovett.
Some 10,000 will attend the main operas, which are staged on alternate nights, but an additional 25,000 will visit the town for the dozens of fringe events. The festival runs until November 5th.
