They never fail to bring the magic.

Cork Midsummer Festival has staged stunning spectacles in unexpected locations; on and in city buildings, perilously high in the air on tightropes, in lush parks at night, and on residential doorsteps, and this year is no different.

For their next trick, they’ll be creating an indoor beach at Cork’s City Hall.

This June, Cork Midsummer Festival, The Everyman, and the National Sculpture Factory supported by Cork City Council present SUN & SEA, an award-winning opera performance watched from above, running from June 23rd- 25th, 2023.

Described by the New York Times as “one of the greatest achievements in performance in the last ten years”, the opera by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, and Lina Lapelytė invites the audience to imagine a beach: “You within it, or better: watching from above – the burning sun, sunscreen and bright bathing suits and sweaty palms and legs. Tired limbs sprawled lazily across a mosaic of towels.

 

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“Imagine the occasional squeal of children, laughter, the sound of an ice cream van in the distance. The musical rhythm of waves on the surf, a soothing sound (on this particular beach, not elsewhere). The crinkling of plastic bags whirling in the air, their silent floating, jellyfish-like, below the waterline. The rumble of a volcano, or of an airplane, or a speedboat.

Then a chorus of songs: everyday songs, songs of worry and of boredom, songs of almost nothing. And below them: the slow creaking of an exhausted Earth, a gasp.”

Sounds altogether wonderful to us.

Tickets for Sun & Sea are €18 – €28 and the performance will run hourly from 5pm to 9pm from June 23rd to 25th, 2023.