Norman Garrett perfect for the part at Wexford Festival Opera
THE opening production at this year’s Wexford Festival Opera is causing considerable excitement. The rarely-seen Koanga, by Delius, was first performed in 1904, and is based on traditional slave melodies and harmonies that the composer had heard when he stayed on an orange plantation in Florida in the 1880s.
It’s a powerfully atmospheric opera about an African prince sold into slavery in Louisiana, who falls in love with a mixed-race maid, with tragic consequences. It is considered to be the first opera ever written for African-Americans, and as such could have been designed especially for that rising star from Lubbock, Texas, Norman Garrett. A young man blessed with the richest of lush baritone voices, marked by a superb command of legato line, Garrett has been garnering awards and plaudits all over the place for the past few years, and is clearly headed towards great things.
