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Edinburgh International Festival 2008: Mark Berry previews this year's programme (MB)


Jonathan Mills, announcing the programme for the sixty-second Edinburgh International Festival, his second as director, pointed to the festival’s exploration of notions of contemporary Europe and its borders, in the wake of the European Union’s enlargement. Borders, he said, should be understood in various senses: political, psychological, geographical, cultural, and religious.  ‘Festival 08,’ then, ‘invites you to embark upon an exciting and often confronting journey along these cultural borders and beyond. Artists from Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bosnia and Georgia are juxtaposed with work from Lebanon, Turkey, Palestine, Israel and Iran - all countries with particular challenges on their own borders. Music from orthodox Christian traditions is heard alongside devotional masterpieces from Islam. Most illustrative of all are the rich traditions of gypsy music, a source of inspiration to composers from Brahms to Bartók, which reject the idea of borders altogether.

The pickings are rich indeed and of course go beyond the musical. Even staying with the musical, it would not be possible to mention more than an inevitably synoptic selection in such a preview. First, opera will include the world première of a fully staged production of a Smetana rarity, The Two Widows, from Scottish Opera. The Mariinsky Opera Company under Valery Gergiev will perform a fully staged production of Szymanowski’s Król Roger, starring Andrzej Dobber and Elzbieta Szmytka. There will also be concert performances of opera, including the Festival’s Opening Concert: Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny conducted by HK Gruber and starring Sir Willard White and Susan Bickley. Gergiev will again conduct the Mariinsky Opera in concert performances of Rachmaninov’s Aleko, the third act of Prokofiev’s Semyon Kotko, and The Enchanted Wanderer by Rodion Shchedrin. Under the heading of not quite opera but certainly musical theatre, we shall be treated to Musiktheater Transparant’s Wolpe! Welche Farbe hat der Vogel, an exploration of the work of the much underrated Stefan Wolpe, and the world première of Heiner Goebbels’s I went to the house but did not enter.

Orchestras appearing include: the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel, the London Symphony Orchestra, again under Gergiev in a Prokofiev cycle, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo, the Staatskapelle Dresden and Fabio Luisi, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Ilan Volkov. Closer to home, there will be apparances from both the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, Oliver Knussen and Emmanuelle Haïm, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Stéphane Denève. Guest soloists will include Karita Mattila, Hélène Grimaud, Sir John Tomlinson, Tatjana Vassillieva, Alfred Brendel (his final Festival appearance) and Jan Vogler. The Messiaen centenary will be celebrated by two organ recitals at St Giles’ Cathedral by Naji Hakim and an Usher Hall concert from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Other artists performing will include Dmitri Hvorostovsky, The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir with Paul Hillier, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Les Arts Florissants under William Christie, Anne Sophie von Otter, and Gabriela Montero. The Song and Civilization series at Greyfriars Kirk will feature choral ensembles, including Dialogos and Sequentia, Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, Sister Marie Keyrouz and L’Ensemble de la Paix, A Cumpagnia and the Anchiskhati Choir. The Queen’s Hall Series of chamber recitals will include appearances from Ysaÿe Quartet, Belcea Quartet, Pavel Haas Quartet, Jerusalem Quartet, Beaux Arts Trio, Susan Bullock, Mischa Maisky, Malcolm Martineau, Keith Lewis, and Melvyn Tan.

The Edinburgh International Festival runs from Friday 8 to Sunday 31 August. See www.eif.co.uk for details.

Mark Berry


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