San Diego Magazine / December 2002 / Off the Beaten Track

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Off the Beaten Track

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When San Diego Opera presents the West Coast premiere of Tobias Picker’s newest opera, Thérèse Raquin, this March (22, 25, 28 and 30), company general director Ian Campbell will be taking a big risk, and not for the first time. It is difficult to imagine the opera could fail to fill most of the Civic Theatre’s 2,975 seats next month for Beethoven’s Fidelio (January 25, 28, 31 and February 2), or later on for Bellini’s Norma (February), Verdi’s Otello (April) or Puccini’s super-popular Madama Butterfly (May)—although ticket buyers can be surprisingly fickle even when the usual warhorses are galloping. But selling four performances of a new opera by a relatively unknown composer will probably keep the opera’s press relations department way up on its toes through many weeks to come.

Risk-taking, however, is essential to the lifeblood of any good opera company and to the future of opera in general. If Campbell doesn’t stick his neck out, both the SDO and the operatic repertoire become musty museum curiosities. Unfortunately, critics seem to be much fonder of new works and freshly unearthed forgotten gems than is the general public—at least in San Diego. Some places in the world have little trouble luring audiences with operatic material that is far off the beaten track.

Take Wexford, an ancient village on the banks of the River Slaney in southeast Ireland dating back to 350 B.C. The town was ruled by Vikings from the ninth to the 12th century and later became a flourishing port, but today it is better known for its annual festival of operatic obscurities. The most recent season served up three ultra-rarities to sold-out houses: Saverio Mercadante’s Il Giuamento; Bohuslav Martinu’s Mirandolina and Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s Manon Lescaut—the latter not to be confused with Puccini’s popular opera of the same name.

True, Wexford’s Theatre Royal (a puzzling name in the anti-royalist Republic of Ireland) contains only 555 seats, but the atmosphere of the entire town turns giddy as overseas visitors jam the hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, mingling with the artists and guzzling Guinness in a spirit that can only be called joyous. Far from the quasipenitential mood with which many San Diegans approach an unfamiliar opera! In Wexford, the new, different and challenging are welcomed, embraced and cherished. And if something is less than expected—well, it was fun to see it anyway. A visit to the Wexford Festival Opera is never to be forgotten, no matter what’s playing.