Opera Review: Guglielmo Ratcliff - Wexford Festival Opera

3/5

Mascagni is best known for his short opera, Cavalleria Rusticana. However, the composer himself rated another of his works much more highly. Guglielmo Ratcliff, begun when he was in his teens, is rarely performed and there was a buzz among locals and international cognoscenti gathered in Wexford in anticipation of an exhumation of the opera last Thursday.

The plot, taken from a play by Heinrich Heine, is a Gothic melodrama of star-crossed lovers, slain suitors and ghostly apparitions set in a 19th century Scottish fantasy-land.