Iris | Wexford Festival Opera Live | RTÉ

We proudly present a live presentation from this year's Wexford Festival Opera - Iris by Pietro Mascagni, with a libretto by Luigi Illica. Iris is a sensory feast and a rare opportunity to experience Italian opera at its most atmospheric and emotionally raw. Set not in a literal Japan, but a mythical one, it is a striking, symbolic masterpiece exploring the fragility of innocence in an uncaring world. Mascagni is best known for his first opera to be staged, Cavalleria rusticana, the work that changed operatic history by launching the verismo movement with panache and which opened in the Italian capital in 1890 to overwhelming acclaim. Iris – the fifth of his works to grace the Wexford stage – offers something more ethereal. Conducted by Francesco Cilluffo, whose reputation as a definitive interpreter of Mascagni's lush scores is further cemented by this, his third production of the composer’s work at the Festival. See more at: http://www.rte.ie/culture