POSTED AUGUST 7, 2022
After a Covid-absence of two years, the world's biggest arts and entertainment festival is back. Both the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe run from August 5 through August 29. Taking Pop Art's blurring of the boundaries of "high" art and "low" culture to streets and venues throughout the city, the two festivals now run in sync. It wasn't always so.
The Edinburgh International Festival was established in 1947 in an effort to bring people together after World War II. A world class cultural event that brings together audiences and artists from around the world, it's an invitation-only event featuring performers and ensembles from the worlds of dance, opera, music and theater.
The Fringe began in 1947, concurrently with the Edinburgh International Festival. In that first year eight theater troupes who had not been invited to perform at the International Festival arrived on the scene, arranged a performance space, and put on their shows during the run of the official festival. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has since become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. Artists and performers take to hundreds of stages all over the city to present shows for every taste. From big names in the world of entertainment to unknown artists looking to build their careers, the festival caters for everyone and includes theater, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions and events.
This year the Edinburgh International Festival includes a new production of Dvořák’s best-loved opera, the dark fairy tale Rusalka, with Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw in the title role [link below]; Counting and Cracking, a stage play that follows one family's journey through love, heartbreak, civil war and migration from Sri Lanka to Australia in an epic multigenerational tale; numerous classical music performances including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mahler's Third Symphony, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, the music of American composer Florence Price and many others. The closing concert is The Dream of Gerontius , which according to the EIF website "deals with nothing less than life, death and what lies beyond, as an elderly man faces his mortality, meets his guardian spirit, and glimpses the divine. It’s a profound experience for listeners of all faiths and none, expressed in music to exhilarate, invigorate, calm and console." A complete listing of the International Festival events can be found here.
This year's Fringe has a mind-boggling 3477 events in venues scattered across the city. Deciding what to see can be a task, but UK newspapers and other media are rife with suggestions.
Stand-up comedy is a huge draw at the Fringe, and a Time Out magazine article introduces some of the best. The Independent writes on the highlights from theater and dance as well as comedy in the link below left. Time Out magazine also offers its theater suggestions below right, while The Scotsman provides a review of an avant-garde production of Hamlet (a 75-minute ballet without most of Shakespeare's text) here. "If the subtlety and complexity of the text is largely missing, what we get instead are emotions writ large."
Oh, and if you want to get away from the summer heat, August daily highs in Edinburgh are in the 60's. It may be too late to go this year, but next year....