CityLife

Festival reveals line-up details

FRENCH OPERA: Rufus

A NEW opera written by Rufus Wainwright, a theatre piece turning the Royal Exchange into a bingo hall and a series of live performances of JS Bach’s music in an environnment specially designed by the internationally-feted architect Zaha Hadid are the first three commissions to be announced for next year’s Manchester International Festival.

The festival, the world’s first to consist entirely of original, new work, will run from Thursday, July 2 until Saturday, July 19 next year.

“These first three commissions are just a taste of the Manchester International Festival 09 programme.

It’s an honour to welcome these artists to the Festival and we look forward to working with them to develop and present their work,” said Festival Director Alex Poots.

“It’s a risky business commissioning new work and the success of last year’s festival means that world-class artists now feel that Manchester is a safe place for them to reveal new works, while also being a major player on the world arts stage.

"These are just three of the commissions and they’re not meant to reveal our overall artistic ambition. You’ll be able to see that when we announce the entire Festival programme in March.”

PRIMA DONNA
Prima Donna is Rufus Wainwright’s debut opera and the openly-gay pop singer emphasies that he definitely will not be singing himself.

A portrait of a fading opera singer, it’s set in Paris and sung in French.

It will be produced in partnership with the Leeds-based Opera North and directed by Daniel Kramer.

Soprano Janis Kelly takes the lead role, Madame, and the show runs from July 10-19 at the Palace, home of the 2007 Festival’s award-winning Monkey: Journey To The West, a new opera in Chinese composed by Damon Albarn.

Talking exclusively to CityLife.co.uk, Rufus Wainwright said “I’d been thinking for years and years and years about writing an opera. I could never quite find a subject that I could handle psychologically for a first work.

"I needed something that was simple! One day, I was wartching these interviews with Maria Callas and instantly this idea for an opera about an opera singer kind of fell into my lap.

"I want to make it clear that this is not an opera about Maria Callas, although she is in there. It’s more about the diva qualities.

"A week later, completely by chance, I got a call from Peter Gelb at the New York Metropolitan Opera who’d heard that I liked opera and asked if I had any projects I was thinking of!

"The idea was so fresh and new at the time that he immediately went with that and we did workshop it there.

"I had a lot of conversations and met a lot of amazing people but it gradually became obvious that with that sort of size of machine I wasn’t going to see any results until at least 2014!

"That was the first issue and so was the fact that I was writing it in French.

"At first I’d intended to shift it into English, but it just kept coming fast and furious in that language so I decided to keep it that way. I had to get it out and I had to keep it in French so we came to the end of that particular road.

"But the Manchester International Festival stepped in. I think that just shows how forward-looking and risk-taking that Alex Poots is with that festival, and they were willing to go with me totally all the way. I know that the last festival kicked of with an opera in Mandarin Chinese, so compared to that French is pretty conventional!” 

Reminded of his reported comment that he was going to premiere the opera in “a small place”, i.e. Manchester, he laughs a little defensively.

“First of all, that was taken out of context and, secondly, what the hell is wrong with small places? I’ve played Manchester a few times but I don’t know it all that well, to tell you the truth. So I’m excited to be able to discover the city and, judging by this festival and what they’re letting me do, Manchester is an exciting, adventurous and enthusiastic place!” 

“Rufus is an artist who’s been obviously bursting out of the constraints of the three-minute pop song and, judging by what I’ve already heard, this opera is going to be a thing of real beauty,” concludes Poots.

EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER
Everybody Loves a Winner is a new theatrical experience created by Neil Bartlett, whose show The Pianist was one of the big hits of the 2007 Manchester International Festival.

The Royal Exchange theatre will, says Poots. “become a bingo hall, both familiar and strange, with added music and dancing. Quite possibly, there’ll be the chance to win some cash too! Bingo is a much-loved but often-overlooked British institution and I think Neil’s work will remind us of that but also make us think about it a bit differently.

"I’ve been going with him to some bingo halls and it’s been a real eye-opening experience.”

BACH/ZAHA HADID
Zaha Hadid Architects are widely regarded as one of the most exciting architectural concerns in the world and Baghdad-born Hadid’s designs have been honoured at New York’s Guggenheim Musiem and the London Design Museum.

They have been commissioned to design a unique, intimate environment within the Manchester Art Gallery for performances of Bach’s solo piano, violin and cello works, with each soloist performing three evening recitals.

“I suppose this came out of a personal feeling of mine,” admits Alex, “that you can go and hear this exquisite chamber-music but usually only in big concert halls.

"I met Zaha and was telling her all about this hobby-horse of mine so we came up with the idea of creating an intimate environment that would be both a visually-stunning work of art and also acoustically would be specially-designed to convey this sublime music.”

*The Festival is also launching a major new creative learning programme for 09, dubbed MIF Creative. It’s a a £750,000 programme designed to provide opportunities for local people to takee part in the festival creatively, trained by high-profile artists.

“Last year also showed us some of the areas we need to improve and one of them is that we needed to be more visible in the city and region, and make local people feel more involved.

"We’re determined to be better at that this time and MIF Creative is part of that effort.”

*Tickets for Prima Donna and J S Bach/Zaha Hadid Architects go on sale at noon on Friday, October 10 from Quaytickets, online via www.mif.co.uk and by phone on 0844 815 4960. Tickets for Everybody Loves a Winner go on public sale on November 4.