About
Diana Salop, mezzo soprano Edward Finegan, tenor Ciara Smith, soprano Leah Walsh, mezzo soprano Roisín O’Neill, soprano Maedhbh Hanafin, mezzo soprano Neeve Batacan, soprano Will Donovan, baritone TU Dublin Conservatoire chorus accompanied by Aoife O’Sullivan, piano A semi-staged, fully costumed performance of Henry Purcell’s 1688 chamber opera, Dido and Aeneas, performed by the…
Diana Salop, mezzo soprano
Edward Finegan, tenor
Ciara Smith, soprano
Leah Walsh, mezzo soprano
Roisín O’Neill, soprano
Maedhbh Hanafin, mezzo soprano
Neeve Batacan, soprano
Will Donovan, baritone
TU Dublin Conservatoire chorus
accompanied by Aoife O’Sullivan, piano
A semi-staged, fully costumed performance of Henry Purcell’s 1688 chamber opera, Dido and Aeneas, performed by the students of TU Dublin Conservatoire, accompanied by lecturer Aoife O’Sullivan, and directed by Head of Discipline, Dr Sandra Oman. Includes the unforgettable ‘Dido’s lament’.
Welcome to TU Dublin Conservatoire’s semi-staged, fully costumed presentation of Henry Purcell’s 1688 baroque chamber opera, Dido and Aeneas. Featureing Bachelor of Music undergraduate students and Master of Music post-graduate students of the Conservatoire in both the principal roles and chorus, this interpretation is directed by Dr Sandra Oman, Head of Vocal Opera and Drama at the Conservatoire, accompanied by lecturer and renowned vocal coach, Aoife O’Sullivan, and designed by Slawek Narwid. A lavish production, not to be missed!
Dublin-born soprano, producer and researcher, Sandra Oman, is Head of Vocal Opera and Drama at TU Dublin Conservatoire and Stagecraft lecturer. She was the 2004 recipient of the Margaret Burke Sheridan Memorial Award from the Bank of Ireland and the Vocal Heritage Society of Ireland, for excellence on the operatic platform. Sandra has performed extensively in opera and concert in Ireland, UK, USA, Italy, Germany, Faroe Islands, Latvia, and Poland and has interpreted over 40 operatic roles on stage. A favourite with Opera Ireland at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, she performed principal roles with them in twelve different seasons, including roles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cosi Fan Tutte, La Cenerentola, Dead Man Walking and A Streetcar named Desire. She has performed in concert with both the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the RTE Concert Orchestra and has sung as soprano soloist with virtually all of Ireland’s major choral societies. She has two Number One Albums on the iTunes Vocal Charts to her credit, entitled LIBERTY and NOËL. In 2022, she was awarded an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Scholarship for her PhD research studies on Giacomo Puccini. She was awarded Doctor of Philosophy from TU Dublin Conservatoire in 2025.
Pianist and lecturer Aoife O’Sullivan was born in Dublin and studied at the College of Music with Frank Heneghan and later at the RIAM with John O’Conor. She graduated from TCD with an Honours degree in Music. In September 1999 she began her studies as a Fulbright Scholar at the Curtis Institute of Music and in 2001 she joined the staff there for her final two years. She was awarded the Geoffrey Parsons Trust Award for accompaniment of singers in 2005. She has worked on the music staff at Wexford Festival Opera, and on three Handel operas for Opera Theatre Company (Orlando, Xerxes, and Alcina), and for Opera Ireland on Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also worked at the National Opera Studio in London and was on the deputy coach list for the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House. She has played for masterclasses including those given by Malcolm Martineau, Ann Murray, Thomas Allen, Thomas Hampson and Anna Moffo. She worked on Mozart’s Zaide at the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme and on Britten’s Turn of the Screw for the Cheltenham Festival with Paul Kildea. She has appeared at the Wigmore Hall in concerts with Ann Murray (chamber versions of Mahler and Berg), Gweneth Ann Jeffers, Wendy Dawn Thompson and Sinéad Campbell Wallace. She is now based in Dublin where she works as a répétiteur and vocal coach at TU Dublin Conservatoire, and also regularly for INO
Polish costume and set designer Slawek Narwid is no stranger to Irish opera audiences. A graduate from the Institute of Art and Design Technology in Dún Laoighre, he designed costumes for Blackwater Valley Opera Festival over a six-year period, also designing the set for Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri in 2018. Other operatic productions include: La Cenerentola, L’Elisir d’Amore, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, and Albert Herring. In the realm of film and television, he has worked on the following productions: Jimmy’s Hall, Penny Dreadful, Love and Friendship, Into the Badlands, Love, Rosie, The Green Knight, The Pope’s Exorcist, Bonhoeffer, Wildfire, Fate: The Winx Saga, Moone Boy, Young Washington, and Ripper Street. For Sheldon Nulty Music, he has designed presentations at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, including: Prima Donna, A Celebration of the Great Divas of Ballet and Opera; Golden Voices of Hollwood; and Bloomsday: A Celebration in Song and Prose of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Slawek won the Best Costume Design Award at the IndieX Film Festival (Los Angeles, USA) 2024, for his work on the short film Johnny Dragon.
Presented by TU Dublin Conservatoire
