Opera Scotland

Edinburgh Festival offerings announced

Posted 7 Apr 2016

Unveiling his second International Festival programme, Fergus Linehan (pictured) revealed a rich mix of world-class artists and ensembles from across the performing arts, alongside a superb showcase of Scottish-based talent.

Opera in 2016 sees staged productions from two of Europe's leading arts festivals. The Salzburg Festival's internationally acclaimed reimagining of Bellini's Norma stars world-renowned mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli in the title role and opens the International Festival programme. Film and stage director Christophe Honoré brings a new production of Mozart's Così fan tutte, direct from the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, in co-production with Opéra de Lille and Edinburgh International Festival, with the Cape Town Opera Chorus and Freiburger Barockorchester.

Opera in concert at the Usher Hall features the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev with Wagner's Das Rheingold, the first of four concert performances of the operas which make up Richard Wagner's epic Ring Cycle. This renowned and compelling cycle will be performed by a series of internationally acclaimed orchestras and singers over four International Festivals from 2016 to 2019.

The Festival's closing concert may not quite be an opera, but Schoenberg's massive cantata Gurrelieder is a work we can't ignore noting here. Elgar's oratorio The Apostles is also something of a rarity, well worth putting in your diary. Perhaps more common elsewhere, it is still a good few years since the Festival gave us one of Bach's greatest works, the Saint Matthew Passion.

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