Written for the party goers of the 1639 Venice Carnivale, Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses was said by one scholar to have enough sex, gore and elements of the supernatural to satisfy the most jaded Venetian palate.

Irish baritone Rory Musgrave will be one of the stars of Wexford Festival Opera, writes Cathy Desmond.

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A fuming husband, a wife with a guilty secret and a jilted lover on the verge of a nervous breakdown are the main protagonists in a pair of short operas on the theme of love and lies presented by Opera Theatre Company at the Watergate Theatre during Kilkenny Arts Festival.

"A rotted body politic riven with lies and factions and a sense that debauchery, despotism and tyranny governs all," is how director, Michael Barker-Caven describes the background of The Rape of Lucretia.