Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival | |
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Queen Elizabeth II (1952–2017) Prince Edward (2017–present) | |
Website | www |
The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in
The first 'International Festival of Music and Drama' took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947. Under the first festival director, the distinguished Austrian-born impresario Rudolf Bing, it had a broadly-based programme, covering orchestral, choral and chamber music, Lieder and song, opera, ballet, drama, film, and Scottish 'piping and dancing' on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, a structure that was followed in subsequent years.[1]
The Festival has taken place every year since 1947, except for 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] A scaled-back version of the festival was held in 2021.
Festival directors
- 1947–1949: Sir Rudolf Bing, Austrian-born opera impresario who became General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera
- 1950–1955: Sir Ian Hunter, British impresario of classical music
- 1956–1960: Robert Ponsonby, British music administrator and BBC programmer[3]
- 1961–1965: George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, British opera administrator, who worked for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, and Opera North
- 1966–1978: Peter Diamand, Berlin-born arts administrator
- 1979–1983: Sir John Drummond, British arts administrator and BBC Radio 3 Controller
- 1984–1991: Frank Dunlop, British theatre director
- 1992–2006: Sir Brian McMaster, British arts administrator who worked at the Welsh National Opera
- October 2006–2014: Sir Jonathan Mills, Australian composer and arts administrator
- October 2014–2022: Fergus Linehan, Irish theatre producer and music administrator
- October 2022–: Nicola Benedetti, Scottish-Italian violinist
Creation of the festival
The idea of a Festival with a remit to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit" and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe took form in the wake of the
Rudolf Bing conceived of the festival to heal the wounds of war through the languages of the arts. This is its principal raison d’être. It was first financed by
Bing had looked at several English cities before shifting his focus to Scotland and settling on Edinburgh, a city he had visited and admired in 1939. In particular, Edinburgh's castle reminded him of Salzburg where he had been the festival director before the war. Harvey Wood described the meeting at which the idea was hatched:
The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama was first discussed over a lunch table in a restaurant in
Hanover Square, London, towards the end of 1944. Rudolf Bing, convinced that musical and operatic festivals on anything like the pre-war scale were unlikely to be held in any of the shattered and impoverished centres for many years to come, was anxious to consider and investigate the possibility of staging such a Festival somewhere in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1946. He was convinced and he convinced my colleagues and myself that such an enterprise, successfully conducted, might at this moment of European time, be of more than temporary significance and might establish in Britain a centre of world resort for lovers of music, drama, opera, ballet and the graphic arts.
Certain preconditions were obviously required of such a centre. It should be a town of reasonable size, capable of absorbing and entertaining anything between 50,000 and 150,000 visitors over a period of three weeks to a month. It should, like Salzburg, have considerable scenic and picturesque appeal and it should be set in a country likely to be attractive to tourists and foreign visitors. It should have sufficient number of theatres, concert halls and open spaces for the adequate staging of a programme of an ambitious and varied character. Above all it should be a city likely to embrace the opportunity and willing to make the festival a major preoccupation not only in the City Chambers but in the heart and home of every citizen, however modest. Greatly daring but not without confidence I recommended Edinburgh as the centre and promised to make preliminary investigations.[5]
Wood approached Falconer, who enthusiastically welcomed the initiative on behalf of the city. As it was too late to finalise arrangements for 1946, plans were made for the following year.
Features of the festival
The first International Festival took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947, and it remained an event straddling August and September until 2015, when the dates of the Edinburgh International Festival was brought forward, to begin and end in August, to coincide with the Fringe.[6]
Classical music
From the beginning, the festival had a broad coverage, but with an emphasis on classical music, a highlight of the first season being concerts given by the Vienna Philharmonic, reunited with their erstwhile conductor Bruno Walter, who had left Europe after Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.[7]
Many notable musicians appeared at the festival during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides Bruno Walter, they included the conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler, John Barbirolli, Thomas Beecham, Adrian Boult, Fritz Busch, Josef Krips, Pierre Monteux and Vittorio Gui, the pianist Artur Schnabel, the violinist Joseph Szigeti, and the singer Lotte Lehmann, all of whom appeared in Edinburgh late their careers.
Rising stars of post-war Europe, such as the conductors
Some of the most impressive performers of the early years had their careers cut short in the 1950s, notably Kathleen Ferrier, Guido Cantelli, Ginette Neveu and Dennis Brain.
Edinburgh remained at the centre of the musical world during the second decade (1957–1966) of the festival. Leading conductors who performed in the city at that time included Otto Klemperer, Ernest Ansermet, Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Yevgeny Mravinsky, István Kertész, Bernard Haitink, George Szell and Leopold Stokowski.
During the third decade (1967-1976) a new group of artists came to Edinburgh, many of whom would dominate music for the rest of the century and into the next. They included conductors like
Opera
The founders of the Edinburgh Festival had been closely connected with the Glyndebourne Opera and from the beginning opera was an important part of the programme.
The city did not have, and still does not have, ideal facilities for creating original staged opera productions, so guest companies were invited to the festival. In the early years, Glyndebourne fulfilled this role, bringing two productions a year between 1947 and 1951. Hamburg took over in 1952, with no less than six productions. Glyndebourne returned from 1953 to 1955, now with three operas each year, with Hamburg coming again in 1956 with four productions.
During the second decade (1957–1966), Edinburgh received a series of different opera companies, starting with La Scala (Piccola Scala), and continuing with the Stuttgart State Opera, Royal Opera Stockholm, Glyndebourne Opera, Covent Garden Opera, Belgrade Opera, the English Opera Group, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Budapest Opera and Ballet, National Theatre, Prague, the Holland Festival and the Bavarian State Opera, with an average of four or five productions each year. Also from 1965, an Edinburgh Festival Opera began to offer locally created shows.
During the third decade (1967–1976), Edinburgh Festival Opera were prominent performers, together with the Glasgow-based Scottish Opera. Meanwhile, the tradition of inviting guest companies continued with the German companies Deutsche Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Hamburg State Opera, and Frankfurt Municipal Opera, the Italian companies Teatro Comunale, Florence and Teatro Massimo, Palermo, as well as National Theatre, Prague, Hungarian State Opera, and Royal Opera, Stockholm and the English Opera Group.
Major artists came to Edinburgh during the first thirty years, such as the conductors
Star singers appearing in staged operas included
Ballet
Drama
Drama was an important feature of the Edinburgh International Festival from its inception, and right through the successful early years.
One of the festival's first dramatic success came in 1948 when an adaptation of
Companies came from all over the world, and with increasing frequency. In the first decade (1947–1956), from France, Italy and Canada, in the second (1957–1966), from France, Italy, Greece, Russia, and Poland, and in the third (1967–1976), from the USA, Sweden, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany, Italy, Romania, Japan, Belgium, and Switzerland. Notable groups included the Le Comédie Française, Düsseldorf Theatre Company, The Stratford Ontario Festival Company, Abbey Theatre Dublin, Theatre on the Balustrade, Prague, La Mama Company, New York and the Noh and Bunraku companies from Japan.
Noted directors in the early years included
Well-known actors included Ralph Richardson, Alec Guinness, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, Emlyn Williams, Claire Bloom, Alan Badel, Peter Finch, Richard Burton, Fay Compton, Ann Todd, Eric Porter and Edwige Feuillère in the early period, while Anna Calder-Marshall, Derek Jacobi, Felicity Kendal, Ian McKellen, John Neville, Edward Petherbridge, and Timothy West first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s.
Visual arts
The visual arts were not featured in the first two festivals in 1947 and 1948, but from 1949 they became an important part of the events. There were major exhibitions at the National Gallery of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy. These included Rembrandt in 1950, Spanish Paintings (El Greco to Goya) in 1951, Degas in 1952, Renoir in 1953, Cézanne in 1954, Gauguin in 1955, and Braque in 1956.
The second decade of the festival began with
The third decade began with Derain in 1967, followed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Wotruba, a Boudin to Picasso exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Canada 101, a focus on contemporary Canadian art, all in 1968. Sixteenth century Italian drawings from British private collections (at Merchants' Hall), Contemporary Polish art, and Jack Coia gold medallist were shown in 1969. For 1970, the exhibitions were Early Celtic art and Contemporary German art from Düsseldorf. The Belgian contribution to surrealism, Sir Walter Scott Bicentenary and Contemporary Romanian art exhibitions were offered in 1971. In 1972 the Scottish painter Alan Davie was featured at the Royal Scottish Academy, followed in 1973 by Permanences e l'Art Francais in the same gallery, as well as Objects USA at the City of Edinburgh Art Gallery, and a Tyrone Guthrie exhibition.
World premieres
Many works have received their world premieres at the Edinburgh International Festival, from T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party and The Confidential Clerk in 1949 and 1953, to James MacMillan's 2018 version of Quickening and Symphony No. 5, both in 2019.
Festival venues
The principal venues of the Festival are:
- Usher Hall (capacity approximately 2,200), concert hall, built in 1914, used by the festival since 1947.
- Kings Theatre (1,300), opened in 1906, used by the festival since 1947, notably for opera.
- Royal Lyceum Theatre (658), opened in 1883, used by the festival since 1947, mainly for drama.
- Festival Theatre (1,915), dating back to 1892, originally a variety, musical and opera house called the Empire Theatre. Used by the festival since 1947, at first for ballet. Remodelled in 1994 and now used for festival opera and ballet.
- The Queen's Hall (920), converted chapel, opened as a concert hall in 1979, performance home of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
- The Hub (420), originally built as the Tollbooth Church (1842–44) to house the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. This is on Castlehill, directly below Edinburgh Castle, with its tall Gothicspire, the highest point in central Edinburgh (outside of the Castle). Used since 1999 as the central box office and information centre for the festival, as well as a separate venue.
- The Dunard Centre (1000), a new concert hall, due to be opened in 2023-4.
Other venues that have sometimes been used in the past include:
- Church Hill Theatre (353), built in 1892 as North Morningside Free Church and bought by the City of Edinburgh Council in 1960.
- The Edinburgh Playhouse(3,059), opened in 1929, Britain's largest theatre, formerly a cinema.
- Freemasons' Hall (approximately 500) at 96 George Street, opened in 1912, used by the festival from 1947 for recitals and chamber concerts.
- Gateway Theatre, built in 1882 as a veterinary college, used for drama performances during the festival, but eventually converted to student housing.[9]
- General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, used for drama performances from 1949
- Leith Theatre (also known as Leith Town Hall and, briefly, Citadel Theatre), used as a medium-sized concert and recital hall by the festival from 1961 to the end of the 1970s. It closed completely in 1988, and is now being once again restored.
- St Cecilia's Hall (180) a historic concert hall in the Cowgate, which dates back to 1763.
Other festivals in Edinburgh
About ten other festivals are held in Edinburgh at about the same time as the International Festival. Collectively, the entire group is referred to as the
Most notable is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which started as an offshoot of the International Festival in the first year of its operation (although not known as such at the beginning), and has since grown to be the world's largest arts and media festival.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival also began in August 1947 with a programme of documentary films. In the 1990s this festival moved into June. The 1966 Writers' Festival begun by John Calder, Richard Demarco, Jim Haynes, founders of the Paperback Bookshop and Traverse Theatre, eventually led to the Edinburgh International Book Festival also staged in August.
The British Army's desire to showcase itself during the festival period led to the independent staging of the first Edinburgh Military Tattoo, featuring displays of piping and dancing, in 1950. This annual event has come to be regarded as a part of the official festival, though it continues to be organised separately.[10]
The result is a collection of festivals with more than 2,500 performances and events every day in Edinburgh in August, which is said to be many times larger than any similar conglomeration of arts and media festivals anywhere in the world.
See also
References
- ^ The International Festival of Music & Drama Edinburgh 1947 Souvenir Programme. 1947.
- ^ "Edinburgh festivals cancelled due to coronavirus". BBC News. 1 April 2020. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
- TheGuardian.com. 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
- ^ Fifield, Christopher. Ibbs and Tillett: The Rise and Fall of a Musical Empire. Ashgate, 2005: p. 263
- ^ G. Bruce, Festival in the North: The story of the Edinburgh Festival, London: Robert Hale, 1975, p. 18.
- ^ Severin Carrell (8 May 2014). "Edinburgh international festival moves dates for 2015 as part of shakeup". The Guardian.
- ^ Bruce, Festival in the North (1975), p. 20.
- ^ Bruce, Festival in the North (1975), pp. 25-6.
- ^ Listed building information for 40-44 (inclusive nos) Elm Row, Gateway Theatre, Historic Environment Scotland, accessed 22 August 2022
- ^ Bruce, Festival in the North (1975), p. 31.
Further reading
- Bartie, Angela (2013). The Edinburgh Festivals : Culture and Society in Postwar Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748670307.
- Bruce, George (1975). Festival in the north : the story of the Edinburgh Festival. London: Hale. ISBN 070915061X.
- Miller, Eileen (1996). The Edinburgh International Festival, 1947-1996. Aldershot, Hants, England: Scolar Press. ISBN 1-85928-153-2.
External links
- Official website
- Edinburgh Festival City Guide to 10 festivals
- Listings and reviews at The List
- ThreeWeeks a guide to the Edinburgh Festival
- A History of the Edinburgh Festivals
- National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE (selection of archive films about the Edinburgh Festival)