RIP-OFF Ireland has reached the opera house. Wexford Festival is hiring an eastern European orchestra because it says that the local equivalent is €150,000 more expensive.

While the government last week established Culture Ireland, an agency to promote Irish art overseas, one of the country’s premier cultural events is now outsourcing its music to Poland and its singing to Prague.

In a memo last year to the Arts Council, which provides almost €1m funding to Wexford each year, the festival said it wouldn’t be using RTE’s National Symphony Orchestra because of the cost.

Released under the Freedom of Information Act, the memo explains that festival organisers couldn’t agree with RTE over rehearsal time or the freedom to negotiate broadcasts and CD opportunities for productions.

“The financial issue was the most critical,” the Wexford chief executive told the Arts Council. “It alone would have made it impossible to retain the National Symphony Orchestra. Had we accepted the terms proposed by RTE, our annual costs would have increased by over €150,000.”

Wexford last used the Irish orchestra in 2001, and since then has hired the National Philharmonic of Belarus and the Krakow Philharmonic from Poland, which will play at this autumn’s festival. It has been using the Prague Chamber Choir since 1995.

Irish musicians have accused Wexford of using cheap labour, and will picket the festival again this October in protest. The Arts Council has expressed its “serious concern” at the festival’s failure to nurture Irish artists, and has made it a condition of future funding that the festival “respond with vigour to its concerns”.

The festival is currently in negotiations with the Arts Council over a €950,000 grant for this year. It was awarded €800,000 in 2004 — about the same level as in 2001 — partly because of its refusal to use Irish artists.

“The increase in the festival’s funding this year exactly matches the €150,000 difference in the cost of the orchestras,” said John Swift, secretary of the Musicians’ Union of Ireland. “If the festival doesn’t want to use RTE’s National Symphony Orchestra, there are five or six other options in Ireland. They could use freelance musicians.”

Swift said that the union’s picket on the festival has attracted sympathy from opera-goers. He questioned why Wexford did not make more use of Ireland’s best opera singers, such as Ann Murray and Virginia Kerr.

“I think we will eventually win on this issue,” Swift predicted. “Our pickets are spoiling the whole thing for them.”

Almost no Irish performers have been used by Wexford in recent years. In 2000, out of a chorus of 40, the number of Irish singers used was three. On two occasions, 2001 and 2002, there were no Irish singers in the chorus.

Only one Irish person has been employed for the production team of 23 in the past six years, while the most number of artists was five out of 36 in 2000.

The festival, whose president is the billionaire Tony O’Reilly, has told the Arts Council that its new artistic director David Agler, an American, will encourage more Irish talent. Agler was appointed in September in succession to Luigi Ferrari, who has been blamed for the lack of Irish performers.

Jerome Hynes, Wexford’s chief executive, promised the Arts Council last September that the issue “will be dealt with satisfactorily”. He said the job description for the new artistic director included in its terms of reference “the philosophy of engaging Irish artists”.

But he added that the artistic director’s independence could not be compromised, and pointed out that Wexford is an “international festival”.

The 18-day event generates €25m for the local economy and boasts 100% full houses even though ticket prices start at almost €100. The festival raises 30% of its income from alternative sources, earning €250,000 in sponsorship two years ago.

RTE, whose orchestra has 90 musicians compared with the eastern European average of 60, has said that in its most recent discussions with Wexford in 2003, it did not ask for a performance fee.

“The proposal made to the festival was based on it only paying for the above-salary expenses incurred by the orchestra,” said a spokeswoman. “RTE does not know which orchestras are being used for cost comparison purposes, but the pay and conditions of RTE musicians would be comparable to those applying to other full-time professional symphony orchestras in western Europe.”

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