Edinburgh International Festival programme revealed

Published on Wednesday 25 March 2009 10:13

THE WORLD premiere of a new play based on the story of Scotland's last executed witch tops the theatre bill at the Edinburgh International Festival this year.

The Last Witch written by Rona Munro, prize-winning author and screenwriter from Dr Who to Ken Loach films, is a highlight of the EIF programme unveiled today.

A recital by baritone Bryn Terfel, one of the greatest names in opera, will be a huge favourite, singing favourite songs at the Usher Hall, accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau.

The Aberdeen-born choreographer Michael Clark, who has choreographed major works for Ballet Rambert and the Barbican, returns to Scotland for the first time in 20 years with a new production. Scottish Ballet also has a new show, Petrushka, from Ian Spink.

This year's festival is built around the themes of The Enlightenment, the 18th Century flowering of philosophy and culture in Scotland and the contemporary world. It runs from Friday August 14 to Sunday 6 September and public booking opens on April 4.

"A visit to Edinburgh in the 18th Century brought one to the source of the ideas and invesntions that lay the foundaitons for so much of the modern world," said the EIF director, Jonathan Mills.

"The Enlightenment was a period of extraordinary creativity, famous for its technological developments, phlosophical provocations and scientific discoveries. It can trace is origins to Scotland and particularly to Edinburgh."

The opening concert at the Usher Hall on 14 August is Judas Maccabaeus, Handel's Oratoriao, which premiered in 1747.

Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse, The Return of Ulysses, from the early 17th Century, is also on the bill, along with Actus Traficus by Bach and Admeto, King of Thessaly by Handel.

There are several concert performances at the Usher Hall, from Verdi's Macbeth to Der Fliegende Hollnder, The Flying Dutchman, by Richard Wagner, and Purcell's The Fairy Queen.

The avant-garde New York theatre company Mabou Mines, in Edinburgh in 2007 with The Dollshouse, returns with a radical new version of JM Barrie's Peter Pan, Peter and Wendy.

In the year of Homecoming, the work of Robert Burns is not included in headline shows. Instead the "Caledonia Sessions", in the relatively small venue of The Hub, promise to explore the musical scene of Scotland in the 18th Century.

One Burns song, Scots Wha Hae, features in a session on Robert Burns' Worldy Friends.

The Last Witch is based on the story of Janet Horne, the last woman executed for witchcraft in Scotland, sentenced to death by burning after she was accused by friends and neighbours of having a pact with the devil.

It is produced by the Traverse Theatre, which has typically hosted some of the strongest line-up on the Fringe, and directed by Traverse director Dominic Hill. He won best director in last year's Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland for the play Peer Gynt.

Other highlights include a new version of St Kilda, Island of the BIrdmen, an abseiling opera set around the island "birdmen" who scaled cliffs for seabirds' eggs, and which was a phenomenal success in

Scotland and Europe in 2007.

• Video special: Watch Tim Cornwell's exclusive interview with Jonathan Mills on Scotsman.com tomorrow.