10 March 2024
In the Utzon Room
Talks and Ideas
The Booker Prize-winning author Anne Enright’s latest novel, The Wren, The Wren, considers the legacy of terrible cruelty within one family. How to live with betrayal and loneliness, yet still love those close to you? Join us for this spellbinding conversation with one of Ireland’s and the world’s greatest living writers about a book that is widely considered one of her finest yet.
| Date | Time |
| Sunday 10 March 2024 | 1 - 2pm |
| Ticket | Price |
| Standard | $35 |
$8.95 booking fee applies per transaction
Prices correct at the time of publication and subject to change without notice. Exact prices will be displayed with seat selection.
The only authorised ticket agency for this event is Sydney Opera House. For more information about Authorised Agencies, see the frequently asked questions below.
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8am, Wednesday 17 January 2024
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9am, Wednesday 17 January 2024
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9am, Thursday 18 January 2024
In English
Wheelchair accessible
There are a number of wheelchair and companion seating locations available.
To book accessible seating contact Box Office via email or telephone on:
+61 2 9250 7777 (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm AEST)
Find out more about accessibility at Sydney Opera House
Run time
This event will run for 60 minutes.
Event duration is a guide only and may be subject to change.
Age
Age guidance: 15+
This event contains adult themes and may include strong language. Children aged 15 years and under must be accompanied by an adult at all times.
The New York TimesOne of the great living writers on the subject of family.
A meditation on love, family, trauma and resilience
Parents. Children. Siblings. Spouses. The Irish author Anne Enright is an absolute expert in writing about family. Throughout her twelve books, she has considered fraught familial interconnectedness from many angles. Her latest, The Wren, The Wren (2023), follows mother and daughter duo Carmel and Nell, two women deeply impacted by the brutal actions of Carmel's famous father, a poet. The protagonists contend with the risks of relationships: co-dependency, cruelty, betrayal, and abandonment.
This multigenerational novel delves into the inheritance of trauma, the resilience of women, and the power of love in its manifold forms. Many have hailed this book as her finest. Don't miss this long-reaching conversation with one of Ireland's finest authors.
Presented by Sydney Opera House
Fintan O’Toole, The GuardianEnright is a bravura stylist who scores the various voices with a delicate ear for the different intonations of loss and longing. All the vividness of characterisation that her readers have come to expect is here, and so is the wry, almost surreal wit.
Anne Enright (she/her)
Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has written two collections of stories, published together as Yesterday’s Weather, one book of non-fiction, Making Babies, and six novels, including The Gathering, which won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Forgotten Waltz, which was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and The Green Road, which was the Bord Gáis Energy Novel of the Year and won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. In 2015 she was appointed as the first Laureate for Irish Fiction, and in 2018 she received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature. The Wren, The Wren is her seventh novel.
Madeleine Gray (she/her)
Moderator
Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, BBC, Electric Literature, Sydney Review of Books, and other publications. In 2019, she was a CA-SRB Emerging Critic, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, a finalist for the Woollahra Digital Literary Non-Fiction Award, and a recipient of a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. She has an MSt in English from the University of Oxford and is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester. Green Dot is her first novel.
Other information
Venue information
Our foyers will be open 90 minutes pre-show for Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and two hours pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances. Refreshments will be available for purchase from our theatre bars.
All Sydney Opera House foyers are pram accessible, with lifts to the main and western foyers. The public lift to all foyers is accessible from the corridor near the escalators on the Lower Concourse and also in the Western Foyer via the corridor on the Ground Level (at the top of the escalators). Pram parking will be available outside the theatres in the Western Foyer.
Getting here
The Sydney Opera House Car Park, operated by Wilson Parking, is open and available to use. Wilson Parking offer discounted parking if you book ahead. Please see the Wilson Parking website for details.
Please check the Transport NSW website for the latest advice and information on travel. You can catch public transport (bus, train, ferry) to Circular Quay and enjoy a six minute walk to the Opera House.
Covid-safe information
The health and wellbeing of everyone attending the Opera House is our top priority. We’re committed to making your experience safe, comfortable and enjoyable, with a number of measures in place including regular cleaning of high-touch areas, air conditioning systems that maximise ventilation, and hand sanitiser stations positioned in all paths of travel. We remind our audiences and visitors to please stay home if you feel unwell. If you need to discuss your ticketing or booking options, contact our Box Office team on 02 9250 7777.
The health and wellbeing of everyone attending the Opera House is our top priority. We have a number of safety measures in place including regular cleaning of high-touch areas, air conditioning systems that maximise ventilation, and hand sanitiser stations positioned in all paths of travel. While face masks are no longer required, we ask all our patrons and visitors to practise good hygiene.
The Sydney Opera House no longer requires patrons to show that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Frequently asked questions
Ticket purchases and collection at our Box Office is discouraged and eTicket or postal delivery methods should be used, wherever possible. However, if you are collecting your tickets from the Box Office, we recommend doing this at least 60 minutes before the event starts. If you have already received your tickets, the venue doors will be open 45 minutes pre-show for Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and 30 minutes pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances. Please take your seats as soon as you arrive.
If you are late, we will seat you as soon as we can and, where possible, in your allocated seat. However, to reduce movement in the venue as well as minimise disruption to the performance and other patrons, ticketholders may be seated in an allocated latecomer’s seat. Please be aware that some events have lock-out periods. In these cases, latecomers will be admitted at a suitable break in the performance. On occasions, this may not be until the interval, or at all where there is no interval.
Details of our right to refuse admission can be found in our General Terms and Conditions for Tickets and Events.
In accordance with our venue security procedures, Opera House security will be scanning and checking bags under the Monumental Stairs, prior to entering the building. Bags will be scanned by an x-ray machine, and staff will wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) when handling your belongings, such as gloves. Cloaking facilities will be open 60 minutes pre-show for Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and 60 minutes pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances. However it is strongly encouraged that you travel lightly to minimise contact and queuing. Any bags larger than an A4 piece of paper will need to be checked into the Cloak Room.
The authorised agency for this event is the Sydney Opera House.
Only tickets purchased by authorised agencies should be considered reliable. If you purchase tickets from a non-authorised agency such as Ticketmaster Resale, Viagogo, Ticketbis, eBay, Gumtree, Tickets Australia or any other unauthorised seller, you risk that these tickets are fake, void or have previously been cancelled. Resale restriction applies. For more details, please refer to our General Terms and Conditions for Tickets and Attendance at Events.
Please contact Box Office on +61 2 9250 7777 as soon as possible to advise if you can no longer attend.
Foyers will be open 90 minutes pre-show for Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and two hours pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances. Refreshments will be available for purchase from our theatre bars.
The venue doors will be open 45 minutes pre-show for Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and 30 minutes pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances.
Please bring a credit or debit card for any on site purchases to enable contactless payment. You’re welcome to bring your own water bottle but no other food and drinks are permitted inside our venues.
The health, safety and wellbeing of everyone at the Sydney Opera House is our top priority. In line with this commitment, the Opera House became a smoke-free site in January 2022. Read our Smoke-free Environment Policy.
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