Blackwater Valley Opera Festival: Impressive Gluck production among the treats in Lismore
Kelli-Ann Masterson was among the stars of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at Lismore. Picture: Patrick Browne
The Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Co Waterford made a welcome return to a June bank holiday slot. Mainly based around Lismore, there was a giddy atmosphere as patrons emerged from cars and coaches clutching picnic baskets, umbrellas, and blankets, and climbed onto golf caddies ferrying opera-goers to the Castle Garden entrance.
A change in artistic direction this year saw a top billing for Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, an opera with more emotional depth than the fizzy Italian comedies that are a staple of the company. Another innovation is the engagement of a choreographer, David Bolger, as director. Eight dancers of CoisCéim Dance Theatre, blended unobtrusively with an eleven-strong chorus, moved around the wide stable yard space in beautifully choreographed movements creating striking tableaux as the denizens of Earth, the Elysian Fields, and the Underworld.
