INO blazes a trail but ends with a chiller

Paula Murrihy plays Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin

Irish National Opera is now the flagship of opera in Ireland, and Bluebeard’s Castle represents its final broadside in what has been a spectacularly successful first year. Already the new all-Ireland company has shown a distinct proclivity for quirky stuff, and in choosing Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s one-act opera it has again nailed its colours to the mast.

INO’s first year has seen it produce 39 performances of eight different productions in 13 ...