The Belfast Festival at Queen's, that valiant attempt to bring light to the North in grim November, does not plan to launch its programme until later in the month, and no detailed information is available. However, punters at the Edinburgh International Festival have been love-bombed with advertisements in their programmes which are full of astonishingly enticing snippets. We have already reported that the Royal Ballet is coming, but the Trisha Brown Company and DV8 Physical Theatre are also scheduled for Belfast. Two new operas scored by Philip Glass will be on offer, as will Monsters Of Grace, a collaboration with Robert Wilson, and Glass's treatment of Cocteau's La Belle Et La Bete.
Surely the centrepiece of the theatre programme will be Silviu Purcarete's new production of The Oresteia - a mouth-watering thought, after his success in treating Greek myth in Les Danaides and Phaedra. Bill Viola will return to Belfast with new visual works, The Nantes Triptych and The Crossing, while Yoko Ono, presumably with her latest performance piece, and David Byrne are also scheduled to appear. Writers who will visit include Paul Auster, Nadine Gordimer, Louis de Bernieres, Jeanette Winterston, while the classical music line-up includes baritone, Olaf Bar, tenor, Ian Bostridge, mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter and the Leipizig Quartet.
Send more information this way at your earliest convenience, Belfast.
