Sideshow winner

I thought my 27th Wexford Opera Festival since 1972 was going to be one of the best. I had seen and enjoyed the Cilea and Chabrier operas on the bill at Holland Park and Opera North in the 1990s, and I was intrigued whether Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet was viable music theatre. Wexford veterans are used to disappointment and surprise success. We know why Glyndebourne audiences go with the flow and enjoy themselves, there being dinner, gardens, atmosphere and ticket prices to dissolve criticism. Wexford is cheaper: €25 to €130 a night for the main operas, less for sideshows. But most visitors make a three-night excursion with b&b as minimum. In the old days, it was a drinking as well as an opera festival — a tradition started by Compton Mackenzie. Audiences were younger and more robust, too.

The old Theatre Royal where the festival started was characterful but uncomfortable.