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theatre · Wednesday 5 August 2026 · See website for times 
The Curing Line - Kilkenny Arts Festival
At Watergate Theatre · Parliament Street, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny
At Watergate Theatre · Parliament Street, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny
Few new operas arrive with the credentials that The Curing Line carries. Composer Michael Gallen’s world premiere at Kilkenny Arts Festival 2026 has already won the FEDORA International Opera Prize - described as the world’s largest prize for new opera - before a single public performance has taken place. That alone makes the four nights at Watergate Theatre some of the most anticipated events of the Irish arts calendar this summer. The production is made by Gallen’s own company Straymaker, and it draws on Irish border life, traditional healing, and music that blends sean-nós, club rhythms, and industrial sound into something that sits well outside conventional opera.
The story follows Cora, a young woman in a 1990s Irish border town who has inherited an ancestral power - a cure for ailments of the breath, passed down from her foster father. The opera traces her work as a healer alongside a local mechanic, the close bond with her foster sister, and the unravelling that follows the father’s death. Themes of cultural loss, environmental collapse, and the thin line between sickness and health run through the libretto, co-written with poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin.
The score is conducted by Clara Baget and performed by seven singers drawn from opera, traditional, and pop backgrounds. Co-directors are Gallen and Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, with set and costume design by Pai Rathaya and lighting by Yukiko Yoshimoto. The Watergate Theatre - a 324-seat civic theatre that opened in 1993, with an upstairs bar and gallery - is a well-suited space: intimate enough to carry the production’s emotional detail, proper enough to serve a world premiere.
The August 6th performance is sold out. The preview on August 5th and the remaining shows on August 8th and 9th still have availability.
Kilkenny city is about 120km south of Dublin. By car, the M9 motorway runs direct and the journey takes roughly 90 minutes. By train, Irish Rail runs regular services from Dublin Heuston to Kilkenny MacDonagh Station; the journey takes around 90 minutes and the station is a short walk from the city centre. Bus Éireann coaches also serve the route. The Watergate Theatre is on Parliament Street, within easy walking distance of most of the city centre hotels and guest houses. Parking is available at the nearby Kilkenny Shopping Centre car park and at St. Canice’s Road.
Kilkenny is one of Ireland’s best-preserved medieval cities, and arriving for an evening performance leaves time to walk the castle grounds, explore the craft quarter, or eat well before curtain up. There is more to see in Kilkenny and across Co. Kilkenny.
Heading to Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny? Kilkenny has plenty more to see. Read the Kilkenny area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.