PÉNÉLOPE
by Gabriel Fauré at Wexford Festival Opera
"This is one of the unerring Wexford successes. Pénélope receives a gorgeous treatment from designer André Barbe, whose set teasingly offsets an idyllic Ionian landscape embracing surreal shades of Magritte with a monochrome, sculptured inner room that weaves together domestic bliss and incipient ennui. The staging by Renaud Doucet works extremely well : he choreographs his sky-blue-clad suitors and white-masked, caryatid-like handmaids so subtly that the opera assumes a kind of balletic beauty. ..."
R. Dunnett - The Independent
"... Ulysses never left. And yet he was never present. Penelope doesn’t wait for Ulysses; she waits for love, a yearning which includes passing over all the faces of her fantasized suitors. Transformation from waiting within temptation. Love is blind. Love conquers all. Really?"
A. Barbe & R. Doucet (View Full Text)
André BARBE was awarded the 2005 Irish Theatre Awards
for the production of Pénélope
at the Wexford Festival Opera
CREDITS
Lighting Designer : Guy Simard
Photos : Clive Barda
Video : Wexford Festival Opera