A new one-act opera by Gerald Barry is to get its first public performance in Dublin in June.

Commissioned by Radio France and first heard in Paris in February 2007, La plus forte ('The Stronger') sets August Strindberg's play of the same name for solo soprano, two actors and a 24-piece orchestra.

The work is set on Christmas Eve and depicts a traumatic encounter between two women in a café as one of them gradually realises that the other is having an affair with her husband.

Sung by Claudia Barainsky, it will be performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conducted by André de Ridder at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on Friday 13 June at 8pm. The programme will also feature Messiaen's Les offrandes oubliées and Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.

The concert will be broadcast live on RTÉ lyric fm.

Gerald Barry and André de Ridder can also be heard in a (not for broadcast) pre-concert talk beginning at 6.45pm.

For further details, please see our calendar or visit www.nch.ie

Posted: 29 May 2008