Irish shock opera makes the world sit up

New tech is allowing a composer-writer duo to add exciting new twists to contemporary music performances

Donnacha Dennehy: his work The New Child will be performed from October 2-9 at the O’Reilly Theatre in Belvedere College, Dublin 1

Ireland has a very thin record in opera production. Our European neighbours had a head-start on us through geniuses like Mozart, Verdi and Puccini and we are unlikely to catch up any time soon. But we have in the past few years proved ourselves very adept at what is increasingly referred to as ‘shock opera’, a new genre generated by the startling advance of new technology in the scenery and sounds departments, not to ...