Irish Composer Michael Gallen wins world's top new opera prize
Irish composer Michael Gallen has been awarded the 2025 FEDORA Opera Prize, the world's largest award for new opera, for his work The Curing Line.
Presented at a ceremony at the Vienna State Opera on Saturday April 26th, the prize of €100,000 is the world's largest award for opera.
Awarded bi-annually for the best new opera in Europe, the winner is selected by an international jury of leading opera producers including the directors of the Paris Opera, Dutch National Opera, Danish National Theatre and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, and presented in partnership with Opera Europa, which represents over 170 opera houses and festivals across 43 countries.
The Curing Line, co-directed by Gallen and American choreographer Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, explores themes of healing, cultural loss, and environmental collapse.
Drawing on ethnographic research into Ireland's folk healing traditions, the opera tells the story of a woman who inherits a life-saving ancestral power but loses her ability to use it. The work aims to question the separation between humans and the natural world, and what is lost in that divide.
New Irish opera "The Curing Line" was awarded the prestigious FEDORA Opera Prize at a special ceremony in Vienna at the weekend. Congratulations to Michael Gallen and everyone at the Straymaker company for their brilliant achievement @dfatirl @FEDORA_Platform pic.twitter.com/cG1butRDdR
— Embassy of Ireland, Vienna (@IrlEmbVienna) April 28, 2025
Jury Chair Birgitta Svendén praised the opera as a "deeply immersive and multisensory" experience that "resonates with the audience of tomorrow." Fedora President Stéphane Argyropoulos added that the project "redefines the operatic genre by fusing tradition with multimedia innovation."
Speaking at the ceremony, Michael Gallen said that "...for our independent, artist-led work to be selected as the winner of the award gives us a huge rush of affirmation that will carry us forward not just with this project but with all of our future plans and ambitions"
Originally from Monaghan and now based in County Mayo, Gallen has earned acclaim for blending contemporary classical music with multidisciplinary performance. His 2021 opera Elsewhere was also nominated for the FEDORA Prize.
The Curing Line, featuring a bilingual libretto by Gallen and poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, is slated to premiere at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in August 2026 before embarking on an international tour.
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