NEWS
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ANNOUNCEMENTS, LINE-UPS AND OPINION Grid Iron’s Leaving Planet Earth Inset: Scottish Ballet
CURTAIN UP
Artists and technology take centre stage as the EIF launch an inspired line-up. Anna Millar reports on Jonathan Mills’ penultimate programme
A crowd-sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with Philip Glass and Patti Smith; a new commission from experimental artist Laurie Anderson; a tribute to Frank Zappa; and a return to the festival for the Wooster Group with the company’s inspired (re) take of Hamlet, complete with Richard Burton film footage.
Oper Frankfurt will appear for their festival debut with Aussie director Barrie Kosky at the helm for a double bill of Dido and Aeneas and Bluebeard’s Castle; Beckett fans can enjoy a mini-festival of the Irish playwright’s works courtesy of Gate Theatre Dublin and Pan Pan Theatre; and dance fans can indulge in a four-day programme of classics, new commissions, talks and films from Scottish Ballet. Scottish Opera also return to the line-up, with the jazz-inspired American Lulu, starring Angel Blue.
More Scottish talent is on show with the much- anticipated addition of Grid Iron to the programme, as the award-winning theatre company prepare to ‘take’ the audience to outer space with their site-responsive promenade piece, Leaving Planet Earth. Intergalactic overtures will also play a part in the opera programme with Opéra de Lyon and contemporary media artist Gary Hill reimagining Beethoven’s Fidelio in space.
Following their boss’ appearance at the 2011 festival, the Philip Glass Ensemble return to perform the artist’s reimagining of Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête score; Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied (aka Mr Natalie Portman) brings his LA Dance Project; and French video artist/choreographer José Montalvo uses blue screen technology in Don Quichotte du Trocadéro. As if all that wasn’t enough, Kafka’s Metamorphosis gets a reinvention c/o Wu Hsing- kuo (who EIF fans might remember from 2011’s one-man King Lear).
The EIF’s visual art strand reaps similarly great rewards with the work of subversive Korean- American artist Nam June Paik at the Talbot Rice Gallery and Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man at the Queen’s Gallery proving just two of the highlights. Across town, media artist Hyung Su Kim will use the public space outside the Usher Hall to create art with the use of LED technology. And such highlights barely touch on a music strand which boasts such veritable joys as Pierre- Laurent Aimard and Italian electronic musician Marco Stroppa; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with a festival debut from conductor Yannick Nézet- Séguin; the Tonhalle Orchestra and the Russian National Orchestra. And finally, the festival’s Honorary President Valery Gergiev will take on the opening concert duties by leading the RSNO through works by Prokofiev.
NEWS IN BRIEF
• PRIMAL SCREAM HEAD TO WICKERMAN Legendary rockers Primal Scream will headline this year’s Wickerman Festival (Fri 26 & Sat 27 Jul). Amy Macdonald, The Enemy, KT Tunstall, Dexys (formerly Dexys Midnight Runners), Bellowhead, King Charles, the hotly- tipped Holy Esque and Roddy Hart and The Lonesome Fire will also appear over the two days.
• NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND IS TOP FREE ATTRACTION Recent i gures suggest that the National Museum of Scotland has proved itself to be the most popular free attraction outside London, drawing in 1.9m visitors in 2012. Edinburgh Castle was the second most popular paid-for attraction outside London and the most popular paid-for attraction in Scotland.
• PLAN B HEADS NORTH A new roster of acts has been announced for RockNess 2013, with Plan B leading the pack as a headliner. The Temper Trap, Alabama 3, Carl Craig, Nic Fanciulli, Netsky LIVE!, The Futureheads, Mark Henning, Redlight, Proxy, Harvey McKay and Animal Farm will also play the festival, which runs from 7–9 Jun. They join a rock and pop-i lled line- up that already includes Basement Jaxx, Example, Madness, The Vaccines, Bombay Bicycle Club, Ben Howard, Ellie Goulding, The Maccabees, Jessie Ware, Camera Obscura and Newton Faulkner.
• SCOTLAND’S NATIONAL COMPANIES RECEIVE AWARDS A huge well done to Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera who each picked up gongs at the South Bank Awards. Scottish Opera received their prize for Ghost Patrol, while Scottish Ballet was celebrated for its critically acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
21 Mar–18 Apr 2013 THE LIST 9