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MARS at Irish National Opera - 1 © Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS Nominated for Best World Premiere at the International Opera Awards 2025
Details
17 October 2025
Athens / Greece
Industry News, Shortlists
We are delighted to share that MARS, shortlisted for the FEDORA Opera Prize 2025, has been nominated for Best World Premiere at the International Opera Awards 2025. The winners will be announced on 13 November during a gala ceremony hosted by the Greek National Opera at the Stavros Niarchos Hall in Athens. The Greek National Opera is also an active member of our network.
MARS, composed and co-directed by Jennifer Walshe with text by Mark O’Connell, explores humanity’s fascination with the red planet through experimental music, satire, and scientific inquiry. Led by Irish National Opera in co-production with Opéra de Lille, the work brings together 4 singers and 12 musicians, weaving themes of interplanetary colonisation, capitalism, climate crisis, and our place in the universe into a provocative and innovative staging.
The FEDORA Opera Prize is supported by The Silver Company, in collaboration with Opera Europa. The FEDORA Prizes competition is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission.
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© Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS at Irish National Opera - 2
© Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS at Irish National Opera - 6
© Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS at Irish National Opera - 5
© Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS at Irish National Opera - 4
© Photo_Pat_Redmond.0524 i
MARS at Irish National Opera - 1
© Klangforum Wien i
MARS
This opera explores our relationship with the planet Mars through Jennifer Walshe’s experimental music and irreverent sense of humour aligned with a rigorous scientific approach to questions of inter-planetary colonisation, space travel and the ethics of human’s relationship to Mars.
