Opera Scotland

Edinburgh International Festival 2023

Posted 14 May 2023

The recently appointed Festival director, violinist Nicola Benedetti, has only had a few months in which to finalise her first programme.  In those circumstances a significant opera schedule could hardly be expected.  However a regular Festival guest, the Australian director Barrie Kosky, is bringing his Berliner Ensemble with a staging of Weill's Threepenny Opera.  Edinburgh-born conductor Sir Donald Runnicles also returns with his Berlin company for a concert performance of Tannhäuser.  This was once by far the most popular Wagner opera in Britain but has not had a professional performance in Scotland for over half a century.

Mozart's Magic Flute is probably the opera most often heard at the Festival.  However Maxim Emelyanychev has recently conducted it at Covent Garden, and his concert account with his Scottish Chamber Orchestra will sound very fresh.  There is also a completely new version, fully-staged but with reduced orchestration at the Church Hill Theatre, of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle.

There will be the usual sekection of vocal works scattered through the orchestral programme - Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Brahms German Requiem, will Sir Andrew Davis conducts A Child of Our Time.