The programme of the Belfast Festival at Queens, launched yesterday, revealed a first-class international festival, hosting major shows from the international festival circuit, and this has been the style of Sean Doran since he took over as director. It is a crying shame he is leaving to be director of the Perth Arts Festival this year, largely, he says, because he was unable to obtain a long-term contract in Belfast.
It isn't dancer Darcey Bussell's fault that she is constantly being paraded as a Great British Institution, and it will be wonderful to see her dance with the Royal Ballet in Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, to music by Massenet, and in Enigma Variations, created by Frederick Ashton, to music by Elgar. This will contrast with the work of New York choreographer Trisha Brown, whose company brings a series of pieces to the festival for one performance only. The enormously strong dance programme - a true miracle in this country - is fleshed out by the "controversial" DV8, who promise to bring pub culture to the "rarefied" world of dance, and take a frank look at masculinity ("Have you ever drunk 18 pints of beer at once?" asks the programme - not much masculinity left after that). Dublin's Irish Modern Dance Theatre will join forces with "New York's hottest young dance sensation", who also happens to be a step dancer, one Sean Curran, for the world premiere of That Place, Those People, while Coisceim also premieres a show, Seasons. It is a real shame that Silviu Purcarete's production of The Oresteia has been cancelled, but in the face of so much else, it would be unfair to emphasise this. La Pantera Imperial, Catalan composer Carles Santos's erotic and playful homage to Bach, which was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival, promises to show us a face of the German composer we have never seen before and the Italian Societas Rafaello Sanzio's production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which is also coming to the Dublin Theatre Festival, explores the nature of rhetoric in radical ways.
A valid criticism of the festival is that it does not have deep enough roots in Belfast itself, but a new production of Northern Star, Stewart Parker's play about Henry Joy Mc Cracken, will go some way towards remedying that, being a co-production between Tinderbox, Field Day and the festival itself. It will be presented in the First Presbyterian Church in Rosemary Street, which was the spiritual home of the leaders of the United Irishmen.
The series based on the work of the composer Philip Glass should be particularly interesting. Monsters of Grace is a collaboration between Glass and the director, Robert Wilson, and will use "advanced digital technology" first made famous in the making of Jurassic Park, to create "a 21st century form of opera-theatre" (best to take refuge in inverted commas in such unknown territory). La Belle et la Bete is Glass's operatic version of Jean Cocteau's silent film of the same name, while his Koyaanisquatsi, a silent film with a live music score, is a collaboration with film-maker, Godfrey Reggio. Glass will also give a performance of solo piano music.
The classical music programme is extraordinary. The English Baroque Soloists, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, will perform, as will one of the world's leading mezzo sopranos, Anne Sofie Van Otter. In an initiative which mirrors the wonderful morning concerts at the Edinburgh Festival, Cardiff Singer Of The World, Katarina Karneus, tenor, Ian Bostridge and baritone, Olaf Bar will take part in Saturday morning coffee concerts (the coffee is for us, not them).
The jazz weekend features the Terence Blanchard Group, the Joe Lovano Trio, the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Gay McIntyre Quartet, for starters, and my own folk weekend favourite would have to be Skara Brae - Maighread, Triona and Micheal O Domhnaill reunited to create their stunning Donegal sound.
The visual arts programme features Bill Viola again, as well as David Bryne and Yoko Ono (yes) whose installations will both be shown at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, and Michael Palin will make an appearance during the comedy weekend. Gore Vidal, Brian Eno and Louis de Bernieres are among those giving festival talks, but the most intriguing must be comedian Owen O'Neill's one-man show based on a lecture which Lorca gave in Madrid in 1932 on his experience of New York.
The festival box office is at 25 College Gardens, Belfast BT9 6BS; the phone number is Belfast 665577
