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music · Sunday 18 October 2026 · 5:00 PM 
The Gambler by Sergei Prokofiev at Wexford Festival Opera
At National Opera House · High Street, Wexford, Co. Wexford, Y35 FEP3
At National Opera House · High Street, Wexford, Co. Wexford, Y35 FEP3
Wexford Festival Opera stages Sergei Prokofiev’s The Gambler across four performances at the National Opera House, opening on Sunday 18 October at 5:00 PM. Prokofiev wrote both the music and the libretto, adapting Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella of the same name. The production is sung in Russian with English surtitles. It is set in 1865 in a fictional German spa town and follows Alexei, a young tutor who spirals into gambling debt while fixated on his employer’s stepdaughter. The festival’s own note on the work is that the casino itself becomes the central character, controlling the destiny of those consumed by their passion for the roulette wheel.
Prokofiev conceived the opera as a deliberate break from Romantic operatic tradition. Instead of long lyrical lines he used a declamatory style built on natural speech rhythms, so the vocal writing tracks the clipped, feverish way the characters actually speak. The Gambler is one of three mainstage operas in the 75th anniversary programme, sharing the season with Mascagni’s Iris and Rossini’s L’equivoco stravagante. Singers announced for the 2026 festival include Joseph Calleja, Ermonela Jaho, Daniela Barcellona and Giorgi Manoshvili.
The National Opera House sits on High Street in the centre of Wexford town, a short walk uphill from the quays. Wexford is reached on the N11 from Dublin and Gorey and the N25 from Rosslare Europort and New Ross. Wexford O’Hanrahan station, on the Dublin Connolly to Rosslare Europort line, is roughly ten minutes’ walk away, and there is paid parking along the quay front and in the town centre car parks.
Heading to National Opera House in Wexford? Wexford has plenty more to see. Read the Wexford area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.