For 65 years already, the Edinburgh International Festival has been one of the most significant festivals in the cultural scene. 2012 is a particular year due to many other events taking place in Great Britain: the Olympic and Paralympics Games, the World Shakespeare Festival, the Edinburgh International Cultural Summit and the Year of Creative Scotland. Such coincidences were fully profited by the festival organizers; we can see this from the solid program proposed, including around 3000 artists from 47 countries.

As usual, theater is one of the strong aspects of the festival. The piece Waiting for Orestes: Electra, performed by the Suzuki Company of Toga is an audacious mise en scène taking Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Euripides’ original versions as the basis for the play. TR Warszawa performs 2008: Macbeth, a radical version of Shakespeare’s famous play. Gulliver’s travels performed by the Radu Stanca National Theatre of Sibiu, Romania, gathers cultural and social aspects of contemporary society and explores themes of voyage, dream, exile, immigration and solitude. Leaving the rigor and coming into the fun, Meine faire Dame – ein Sprachlabor, is a clever and humoristic play directed by Christoph Marthaler, one of the most acclaimed and influential directors in Europe.

Dance is probably the second most important discipline of the festival. The Ballet Preljocaj, the Deborah Colker Dance Company, Juilliard Dance, the Marinsky Ballet are some of prestigious dance companies gathered for this occasion. Regarding opera, Leos Janacek’s The Makropulos Case is one of the high points of Edinburgh’s festival. Also, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev and the popular Virgin Money Fireworks Concert performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are medullar points.

A world premiere will be NVS’s Speed of light, a remarkable fusion of innovative public art and sporting endeavor: a visual display of hundreds of runners wearing specially commissioned light suits, moving across Arthur’s Seat the iconic mountain of Edinburgh. Concerning France, the festival director, Jonathan Mills, said in a special event at the British ambassador’s residency being enthusiastic of having again some of the most talented French artists in the festival. Arianne Mnouchkine et Le Théâtre du Soleil, Les Arts Florissants, Les Vents Français et L’Orchestre du Champs Elysées, the vocal ensemble Dialogos, are some of the French participants in the festival.

More info at: www.eif.co.uk