Resurrection Symphony 2019Edinburgh International Festival
Read more about the opera Symphony no2 'Resurrection'
Mahler's Resurrection Symphony demands special circumstances to justify its performance. The opening concert of an Edinburgh Festival with these participants certainly does look rather exceptional. The Los Angeles orchestra, famed for its luscious string tone, has in the past been directed by such great Mahlerians as Zubin Mehta and Carlo Maria Giulini. Certainly Gustavo Dudamel has plenty of the necessary charisma to follow in their footsteps. The two soloists were ideal.
The opera programme for the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival included two fully-staged productions. The Komische Opera, Berlin, last here in 2015, brought a staging by director Barrie Kosky of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Scottish Opera's contribution was the European premiere of the noted American composer Missy Mazzoli's interpretation of Breaking the Waves, a bleak view of life in the Scottish Highlands, as depicted in the 1996 film by Lars von Trier.
The series of notable concert performances featured Götterdämmerung, bringing to a climax the Festival's four-year cycle of Wagner's Ring. A second Berlin company, the Deutsche Oper, led by its Scottish conductor, Donald Runnicles, brought Puccini's rare early Manon Lescaut featuring Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Iestyn Davies led the cast in a performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.
There was a rare and wonderful Elgar oratorio, The Kingdom, with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus joined by Martyn Brabbins and the Hallé. Even more unusual was the celebration of Leonard Bernstein's centenary - a concert presentation by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra of his great musical West Side Siory. In addition, the opening concert brought the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel in Mahler's inspiring 'Resurrection' Symphony. And the Orchestre de Paris brought Britten's War Requiem.
