Wexford Festival Opera - 75th Anniversary

What to Expect

2026 marks the 75th anniversary of Wexford Festival Opera, one of the world’s leading opera festivals and Ireland’s flagship classical music event. The festival began as a local initiative: in November 1950 the novelist and Gramophone founder Compton Mackenzie suggested to Wexford doctor Tom Walsh that the town stage an opera rather than simply listen to recordings, and the inaugural “Festival of Music and the Arts” opened on 21 October 1951. Three-quarters of a century on, the festival has built its reputation on staging operas the major houses overlook, giving neglected composers such as Donizetti and Massenet a stage and launching international careers along the way. The 2026 mainstage programme runs three productions: Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, Gioachino Rossini’s L’equivoco stravagante, and Sergei Prokofiev’s The Gambler, alongside a dedicated 75th anniversary concert titled Croí na Féile. The anniversary line-up draws major international names including tenor Joseph Calleja, soprano Ermonela Jaho, mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona and bass Giorgi Manoshvili. Performances run in repertory across the 17-day festival, meaning each opera plays on a rotating schedule rather than in a single block of nights.

Good to Know

• Runs Thursday 15 to Saturday 31 October 2026 at the National Opera House, High Street, Wexford town.
• Mainstage operas: Iris (Mascagni), L’equivoco stravagante (Rossini) and The Gambler (Prokofiev), plus the Croí na Féile 75th anniversary concert.
• Tickets and full show-by-show timings are sold through the festival’s own booking system at wexfordopera.com; the box office can also be reached on +353 53 912 2144 or boxoffice@wexfordopera.com, Monday to Saturday.
• The festival moved into a rebuilt Theatre Royal in 1961 and into the current purpose-built National Opera House in 2008, which was formally designated Ireland’s National Opera House in 2014.
• Wexford town fills up during the festival with an accompanying fringe of concerts and talks, plus the separate Wexford Spiegeltent Festival on the quayfront, so accommodation is worth booking well ahead.

Getting There

The National Opera House is on High Street in the centre of Wexford town, within walking distance of the train station and main car parks. Wexford is roughly 1 hour 40 minutes south of Dublin on the N11/M11, with Irish Rail connecting Wexford to Dublin Connolly in about two hours and Bus Éireann and Wexford Bus also serving the town.