Sinéad O'Neill
The Spectre Knight, Wexford Festival Opera, October 2022
'Director Sinéad O’Neill and musical director, Gioele Muglialdo – along with an excellent young cast – expertly exploited the energy and charm of The Spectre Knight. O'Neill indulges the sentimentality while keeping one tongue firmly in cheek... This was a performance of free-flowing fun, greatly enjoyed.'
- Claire Seymour, Opera Today
Pay the Piper, Glyndebourne, February 2022
'A significant achievement' - George Hall, Opera
'Familiar fairy tale expertly crafted' - The Stage (4/5 stars)
'innovative...unique...a labour of love' - Mark Aspen
Precipice, The Grange Festival, August 2020
'O'Neill's use of the differing landscapes is wonderfully original... The whole thing is a wonderful example of what the imagination can accomplish in difficult times.' - Tim Ashley, The Guardian (4/5 stars)
'A mirror of our times in mixed art forms... an event that's innovative, ambitious and responsive to conditions.' - David Karlin, Bachtrack (4/5 stars)
Il barbiere di Siviglia (revival) Glyndebourne Festival, 2019
'Happily revival director Sinead O’Neill has succeeded in calming down the staging while preserving
its joyful energy...' - Amanda Holloway, The Stage (4/5 stars)
'A magnificent performance of a superb production of a glorious opera.'
- William Hartston, The Express (5/5 stars)
'Revival director Sinéad O’Neill has taken Figaro’s razor and sharpened up the stage action.'
- Mark Pullinger, Bachtrack (4/5 stars)
Pelléas et Mélisande: Glyndebourne Festival at the BBC Proms
(semi-staging by Sinéad O'Neill) July 2018
'This was a strange, yet fascinating, evening. Undoubtedly the best-ever semi-staging of an opera at the Proms.'
- Jim Pritchard, Seen & Heard International
'Played without some of the distractions and accretions of Stefan Herheim’s concept this performance smouldered with ever-increasing intensity; the extended silence in the Hall at the end was testament to that... Sinéad O’Neill was perhaps a tad more faithful to Maeterlinck whilst keeping the theatrical best of the cast.' - Alexander Campbell, Classical Source
Sketches by audience member Sam Motherwell at On the Axis of this World