More than 40 per cent of tickets to Saul, which will be staged at the Festival Theatre from March 3 to 9 in an Adelaide exclusive, have been bought by people outside South Australia.

“The last four months has included the daily thrill of receiving the sales reports for Kosky’s Saul and watching the tickets fly out the door,” said Rachel Healy, festival co-artistic director.

“We are so delighted at the community’s embrace of this glorious work and equally pleased that so many ticket-buyers will be coming to Adelaide from other parts of Australia and around the world.”

When Saul was announced as the Festival centrepiece in August, ahead of the full program release in October, Healy and fellow artistic director Neil Armfield described it as a masterpiece that showcases Kosky’s “virtuosic stagecraft, rich imaginative world and subversive humour”.

The dramatic work – which features vivid costumes and sets, and explores the King of Israel’s relationship with his eventual successor, David – premiered last year at the Glyndebourne Festival in Sussex, Britain.

Kosky has previously said he is thrilled to be returning to the Adelaide Festival 21 years after he directed the event as a 29-year-old in 1996.

The Festival says ticket sales across the whole 2017 program are showing an “upward trend”, with other particularly popular shows including Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna and Rufus Does Judy, Canadian dance theatre production Betroffenheit, Italian chamber music trio La Gaia Scienza, and UK show Wot? No Fish!!

Tickets are also said to be selling fast to the Writers’ Week lunch event The Drunken Botanist, at the Botanic Gardens Restaurant, which will feature American author of books on both horticulture and crime Amy Stewart.

The 2017 Adelaide Festival will run from March 3-19.