The Everyman Theatre, Cork
Tuesday
5th December 2023
7:30pm
Box Office: (021) 450 1673
National Opera House, Wexford
Saturday
9th December 2023
8:00pm
Box Office: 053 912 2144 / 1850 4 OPERA
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Thursday
14th December 2023
3:00pm & 8:00pm
Box Office: 01 417 0000
Rachel Croash
Rachel Croash
Dublin Soprano Rachel Croash was a member of the inaugural Irish National Opera Studio and The Cork Opera House Cara O’Sullivan Associate Artists Programme. Awards include the Wexford Festival Opera Aria Friends Award and the WFO & PwC Emerging Artist Bursary.
Rachel has previously appeared with Lyric Opera Productions as Marzelline in Fidelio, Musetta in La Boheme, Mabel in Pirates of Penzance, Valencienne in The Merry Widow and as a soloist in Puccini by Candlelight.
Other roles include Ines, Annina, Serafina, Reneé and Dew Fairy (Wexford Festival Opera), Blanche, Norina and Avis (Glyndebourne Festival Opera – Cover), Mimi; Fiordiligi; Susanna; Frasquita (Cork Opera House), Mathilde; Marianne; Frasquita; Clorinda; Erste Dame; Kate Pinkerton; Mademoiselle Silberklang (Irish National Opera) and Elvira; Fiordiligi (Blackwatervalley Opera Festival).
Concert Highlights include Barber’s ‘Knoxville:Summer of 1915’ with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra as well as performances with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, City of Dublin Chamber Orchestra, Music in Great Irish Houses Festival, Music for Galway, The Contemporary Music Centre and The Metropolitan Club, New York.
Rachel had the privilege of singing at Áras an Uachtaráin for The President of Ireland Michael D.Higgins and as guest soloist for the televised National Commemoration Day Service in Collins Barrracks. Rachel has appeared with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in RTÉ’s ‘Carols from Dublin Castle’ and ‘Christmas with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra’.
Soprano
José de Eça
José de Eça
José de Eça trained under the guidance of his father, the distinguished Portuguese operatic baritone and lieder singer José de Oliveira Lopes, before attending the Conservatório Superior de Música de Gaia under the guidance of Professor Fernanda Correia.
He began his professional career as a teenage baritone, with performances of Amhal and the Night Visitors, The Sound of Music, Eloise, Bundibár, Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro.
His solo Oratorio debut, as a baritone, in Fauré’s Requiem with Círculo Portuense de Ópera (CPO), returning to the company, as a tenor, to sing Haydn’s Missa In Angustis and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle.
He has performed in recital throughout Portugal, and internationally in Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Italy, Mozambique and Spain. He made his Irish at the Wexford Festival as Capello Il bravo and Nick La fanciulla del West.
He has collaborated with several conductors and pianists, including: Helena Marinho; Paule Grimaldi; Álvaro Teixeira Lopes; Adriano Jordão; Mário Mateus; José Eduardo Gomes; Luís Costa; Ángel González; Armando Vidal; among others.
Tenor
Paul McGrath
Paul McGrath
With ancestors who moved from Cork to Clifden in the 1840s, Paul was born in London, raised in Zurich, studied at National Opera Studio, London and Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, where he held the conducting fellowship.
Worked on the music staff at English National Opera, The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, (where he was assistant to Sir Georg Solti), and as chorus master at the Spanish National Opera, Madrid.
Paul has held positions as associate conductor – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, principal guest conductor – English Touring Opera, music director – University of Warwick and has conducted opera in Europe and the USA including: La Bohème Staatsoper Hannover, Le Nozze di Figaro Opera Zuid, Savoy Opera Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Zauberflöte English Touring Opera, Opera North, La Périchole Theater Basel, Così fan tutte British Youth Opera, Orphée aux enfers Opera North. He has conducted many world premieres including two operas by Michael Nyman in London, Italy and the USA (both recorded at Abbey Road Studios for MN Records) and the european mainland premiere of Flight Vlaamse Opera Belgium.
Compositions include Evidence, The Monkey King, Beyond Your Elsewhere, Duels and Travelling which have been performed in France, UK, Italy and broadcast on CCTV Beijing.
linktr.ee/PaulMcGrathMusicConductor
Vivian J. Coates
Vivian J. Coates
Returning from abroad having worked with most of the opera companies in the UK, Vivian Coates has spent much of his career in Ireland nurturing young Irish talent on stage and guiding them on their first professional rung of the ladder. He has presented countless fully staged operas in Ireland through his company Lyric Opera, and is recognised for the tireless work he has done in keeping core opera alive in this city.
He is privileged to work across opera and musical theatre, directing and designing in most of the main theatres in Ireland; The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, The Grand Opera House, Belfast, The National Opera House, Wexford and the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Opera productions include Aida , Il Trovatore, Don Giovanni, Hansel und Gretel, I Due Foscari, La Traviata, Carmen, Nabucco, Macbeth, La Bohéme, Turandot, Suor Angelica, The Turn of the Screw, Rusalka, Cavalleria Rusticana, Madama Butterfly and Attila among others. His musical theatre credits include Annie, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, 9 to 5, Camelot and many more.
Mr. Coates has received many international accolades for his work. In 2007 he was honoured with a Knighthood and title of Cavaliere by the Italian Government for his work in presenting Italian opera in Ireland. In 2015 he designed for The Music of Northern Ireland, which received 4 EMMY’S in the 2016 roll of honour. And his recent productions with The 2018 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate UK played to extraordinary acclaim, garnering five star reviews. Recent productions include Sweeney Todd (The National Opera House), La Bohème, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fidelio, Werther and Hansel und Gretel, (NCH).
Director
Peter McCamley
Peter McCamley
Peter is a proud graduate of The Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and The American College Dublin. He has been an Acting and Voice lecturer since graduating from Drama School. He is also currently the head of the Acting Department on the BFA Performing Arts and BFA Musical Theatre courses at The American College Dublin.
Roles include Captain Von Trapp – The Sound of Music, Vittorio de Sica – La Ciociara, Narrator/Spinelloccio – Gianni Schicchi, The Royal Minister – Cinderella, George Gershwin – Someone To Watch Over Me, Harry Houdini – Impossible Interviews, William Shakespeare – Impossible Interviews , Ariel – The Tempest, Theseus/Oberon – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Vincent/Theo Van Gogh – Vincent, Maynard Perdu – The Diary of Maynard Perdu, Caractacus Potts – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Eddie – Greek, Male Actor – Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Balloo/Father Wolf – The Jungle Book, Lyin George/Fosca – The Gold Rush, Templeton The Rat – Charlotte’s Web, Kinesias – Lysistrata, Autolycus – The Winter’s Tale, 14th Earl of Gurney – The Ruling Class, Uncle Louie – Lost In Yonkers, Henry Higgins – Pygmalion.
He has been involved in many other media engagements which include: DI Yeats – Clean Sweep, Uncle Peter – Sequah, Mr Dugdale – Turning Thirteen, Soldier – The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Footballer – UEFA Champions league/Heineken, Detective – Bloodline Detectives, Narrator – Did we land on the Moon, Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, Manchester United: The Munich Air Crash, Hitler’s secret plot to Bomb America, Bomb Patrol, The Real Inglorious Bastards.
Host
MTU Glór Choral Society.
The Carlow Choral Society
The National Concert Hall, Dublin
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Once in Royal David’s City (D. Wilcocks)
Good King Wenceslas (B Chilcott)
Oh Come, All Ye Faithful (D. Wilcocks)
Let the Bright Seraphim (G. F. Händel)
The Holly and the Ivy (H. Walford Davies)
Alleluja (W. A. Mozart)
Feiz Navidad (J. Feliciano)
Hark! The Herald Angel Sing (D. Wilcocks)
Christmas Eve Polonaise (N. Rimsky-Korsakov)
O Holy Night (Adam)
Silent Night (B. Chilcott)
The Little Drummer Boy (K. Davis)
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Wyle)
The First Nowell (Trad)
Plus many more of your favourite festive Christmas Classics both old and new.