The Hunger

The Hunger – A new opera by Donnacha Dennehy featuring Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird.

Asenath Nicholson travelled in Ireland and provided relief to starving people during the Great Famine. Her harrowing first-person account Annals of the Famine in Ireland forms the basis of this extraordinary opera by Donnacha Dennehy, composer of the award-winning The Last Hotel and The Second Violinist. Director Tom Creed makes his debut on the Abbey stage with the European premiere of a moving and thrilling new work.

The Hunger is brought to life by world-renowned sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird (The Gloaming) and internationally acclaimed soprano Katherine Manley (The Last Hotel), with Ireland's leading new music specialists Crash Ensemble and conductor Alan Pierson integrated into the staging. Traditional songs dovetail seamlessly with new music, while video interviews with Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, and others underscore the political roots of this tragedy that brought a nation to its knees.

“…ambitious, deeply researched, often beautiful” – The Washington Post.