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Tempting deals at Parknasilla
Reopening on March 26th after its seasonal closure, Parknasilla Resort has a selection of online offers to tempt guests to the iconic estate overlooking the Atlantic in the Kerry countryside. A two-night bed and breakfast break with one evening meal deal costs €288 for two people, a saving of €50 on the regular price of €338. Book three nights bed and breakfast and two evening meals and save €100 on the original price of €538, paying just €438 for two people. A gorgeous, sprawling Victorian estate with a lovely spa, it's a pretty good bolthole for some spring treats. ww.parknasillahotel.ie
Star-crossed lovers
Award-winning Opera Ireland's spring season features two different interpretations of the most powerful love stories of all time in a week of rich, romantic opera. Gounod's Roméo et Juliette plays on Saturday, February 27th, Monday, March 1st, 3rd, 5th at 8pm with a matinee on March 7th at 2.30pm.
Two concert performances of Bellini's vocally dazzling I Capuleti e I Montecchi (the Capulets and the Montagues) play on March 4th and 6th. Both performaces are at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre.
Roméo et Juliette features American tenor Michael Spyres and French soprano Nathalie Manfrino, and the Italian ‘Bel Canto' I Capuleti e I Montecchi stars Australian soprano Jessica Pratt singing the role of Giulietta, with Irish mezzo-soprano Fiona Murphy as her ill-fated lover Romeo.
Tickets from €25 - €120, phone 1890 67 37 27, www.operaireland.com
Wildly different things
"The dire predictions of global homogenisation are just not true. There's a lot of shared information but people do wildly different things with it" - the conclusion of Robert Storr, curator of the 2007 Venice Biennale after visiting hundreds of artists on five continents.
An exhibition Wildly Different Things: New York and Dublin brings together art being produced by artists thousands of miles apart, from New York and Dublin. Providing an opportunity to examine the commonalities and differences in work by artists on separate continents accessing shared information, it includes painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, video and film as well as an evening of responses from poets and performance artists and a panel discussion.
It runs at The Observatory 7-11 Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2 until 20th March. www.wildlydifferentthings.com
Shakespeare's greatest play?
Second Age Theatre Company's staging of Shakespeare's greatest play Hamlet tours to the Helix Theatre, Dublin and the Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork in March.
Perhaps the most influential, powerful and intriguing of all tragedies, Hamlet's ground-breaking focus on character rather than action makes it as contemporary and relevant as any reality TV or soap opera.
Starring Marty Rea as the Dane, with Stephen Brennan, Barbara Brennan, Garrett Keogh and John Olohan. Helix Theatre, Dublin, February 23th - March 19th, Everyman Palace, Cork, March 22nd- March 26th, tickets from €18, www.secondage.com, (01) 679 8542.
