Edinburgh International Festival 2024 Programme Launch: Five operas and perhaps more affordable seats

The EIF’s 2024 programme builds on Nicola Benedetti’s successful opening year as Director by remedying some faults of last year’s programme, and continuing innovations which proved popular in 2023.

Last year there were no staged operas, and this year there are three and two concert performances. The Opéra-Comique’s new production of ‘Carmen’ by Andrea Homoki celebrates the original performances, with sets based on the art and architecture of the period. Gaëlle Arquez is Carmen and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under conductor Louis Langrée provide the music.

Komische Oper Berlin under Music Director, James Gaffigan, and theatre and opera director, Kirill Serebrennikov, bring a new production of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ also to the Festival Theatre. There are two ensemble casts which cover three performances.

Scottish Opera’s ‘Oedipus Rex’ at the Royal Museum of Scotland is a promenade production, which will have 100-strong Community Chorus drawn from across central Scotland.

The SCO and SCO Chorus under Maxim Emelyanychev present a concert performance of ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ with Golda Schultz as Fiordiligi and Christopher Maltman as Don Alphonso.

Richard Strauss’s final opera ‘Capriccio’, is the closing concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Andrew Davis (who first conducted the opera 51 years ago) and singers including Malin Byström and Sarah Connolly.

Among other sung events in the Usher Hall programme, the opening weekend’s ‘Matthew Passion,’ in Mendelssohn’s arrangement, features the Festival Chorus with  new director, James Grossmith, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Wigglesworth and soloists, Elizabeth Watts, Sarah Connolly, Ed Lyon and Neal Davies.

In a beanbag concert, the Festival Chorus sing Alexander Grechaninov’s unaccompanied 1912 ‘Passion Week’. The Festival Chorus also take part in Mark Elder’s last ever concert with the Hallé, to sing Lili Boulanger’s ‘Psalm 130’, and in the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Verdi ‘Requiem’ under Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

Scotland’s orchestras, choirs, theatre and ballet companies play a central role in this year’s Festival and Nicola Benedetti plays ‘The Lark Ascending’ for family audiences in an afternoon concert– “all adults must be accompanied by a responsible child”.

My top tip in the Queen’s Hall programme is the Irish Baroque Orchestra. Under conductor, former SCO bassoonist, Peter Whelan they’ve established a distinctive sound on period instruments and their recreation of an 18th century Dublin concert includes their splendid version of Handel’s ‘Water Music’.  There’s also Il Pomo D’Oro with counter-tenor, Jakub Józef Orliński, and the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela whose programme ranges from early church music to Villa-Lobos and James MacMillan.  I welcome the chance to hear soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn  with Simon Lepper in Late Romantic repertoire, and also Ian Bostridge and Steven Osborne in Schubert’s ‘Schwanengesang’ and other Lieder. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Harry Baker work on arrangements of Bach and composers he’s influenced, and in the final Queen’s Hall concert, Thomas Quasthoff directs young singers, chosen by audition, in a performance of Rossini’s ‘Petite Messe solennelle’.

The news on ticket pricing is mixed.  We’re promised: “50% of tickets will be sold at £30 or under, and £10 affordable tickets will be available for all performances”. A 20% discount is offered when buying three or more operas, or three or more Queen’s Hall concerts, and on the Usher Hall orchestral residencies. However, flexible pricing, not mentioned in the press briefing, looks likely again, as the ominous sentence, “ticket prices may vary from previously published prices” is in the programme, and only a “from” price appears for most concerts.  So if you can book early, do so!

The printed programme is easier to find your way around than last year, though  the fold-out calendar at the end is clumsy.  And here’s an oddity: in the middle week of the Festival, the Usher Hall programme consists of two concerts by solo contemporary musicians, and seven beanbag concerts over three days.  I can understand why they are popular, so why not allocate one day a week to them?