London

Classical
You wouldn’t think opera was the origin of the Edinburgh Festival, a northern showcase for Glyndebourne. The great days saw Callas and the Scala company, among others, struggling with inadequate stage facilities while being regaled with tea and baps in the days when the city was dry on Sundays. Liberal licensing laws and a beautiful custom-made festival theatre have ironically coincided with the rising costs that largely drove imported opera out. But this year Monteverdi’s ‘Orfeo’ is still a must. The great Jordi Savall (the wider public heard him in ‘Tous les Matins du Monde’) conducts period forces in a smash-hit Barcelona production (Edinburgh Festival Theatre from August 11).
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Savall can be spotted with his viola da gamba in concerts elsewhere, an example of the rarity and high quality expected from international fests, though blasé Londoners note that usually Edinburgh simply means London regulars transferred north. But the Smoke has been pipped to the post by two star attractions: whizz kid Gustavo Dudamel conducts Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra on August 17 (Usher Hall), pre-empting its Proms date by two days. This is the band that’s knocked the likes of Rattle and Abbado sideways with its quality – amazingly including numbers of ex-street-kids and gang members who traded in their weapons for instruments. Maestro’s maestro Mariss Jansons (who went on semi-consciously conducting while lying flat from a near-fatal heart attack during an opera performance) directs his Bavarian Radio SO (August 27, 28, Usher Hall) before heading south to Kensington Gore.

Italian baroque features heavily this year, ranging from the Concerto Italiano under Rinaldo Alessandrini in a madrigal cycle at Greyfriars Kirk (August 11-17) to the dark cabaret style of the Tiger Lillies who do to Monteverdi what they did to Shockheaded Peter (August 25, Usher Hall). Possibly not for purists.

The festival’s most consistent star is a venue: the Queen’s Hall. Intimacy, friendliness and unfailing quality make its 11am recitals a great institution, setting you up for the rest of the day (though I once knew a London visitor who’d only attend the morning concerts and still felt she’d had the cream of the festival). A quick sample: tenor Mark Padmore (August 14), Kate Royal and Christine Rice duetting (August 20), the Tokyo String Quartet (August 21), tenor Christoph Prégardien (August 23), violist Yuri Bashmet (August 24), Christine Brewer (August 28), Gidon Kremer (August 30), and guitarist John Williams (August 31). Not to mention a knockabout Aussie comic, a stand-up Sheila who knocks spots off Poms and Jocks alike: watch out for Ismone Rabid. Great support includes soprano Monise Bardi and stripper Eminos Brida.

Now that’s what I call a festival.