Arts
Edinburgh '84
Allan Massie
This year's is an optimistic Festival. The reason is not hard to seek: there is a new Director. The Edinburgh Festival is a
fickle jade, who thrills to be off with the old love. John Drummond's contribution
to the Festival was enormous and invigor- ating, but his reign ended sourly. There was no surprise in that. All Festival Direc- tors in Edinburgh have had the same sort of experience. His successor, Frank Dun- lop, is at present in the honeymoon stage, billing and cooing with the City Fathers, who, since the political upheaval of the May elections, are in fact far from fatherly; rather a set of Lefty social workers, every bit as bossy as the old-fashioned heavy father, but with different priorities (Lon- don knows the breed). They of course are concerned about the Festival's 'elitism'. Fortunately for the present stage of the love-match Frank Dunlop has a reputation for being a populariser. He is therefore ready to speak the same language, pro- claiming his intention to bring the Festival to the People. Already he has stolen a march on critics of elitism by siting Festival events in deprived Craigmillar. For the rest we shall see. Not much in the main part of the programme suggests any real change of emphasis, though generally one has to wait till a Director's second Festival before being able to see signs of a personal pattern. In his first year he is to some extent strapped in by decisions already taken by his predecessor. The opera programme looks less exciting than it used to be. That will appeal only to those who consider opera an art-form that exists solely for the economically privi- leged. In fact, though, this follows the Pattern of recent years. Drummond's predecessor, Peter Diamand, devoted to opera what some thought an excessive share of the Festival's resources, doing so doggedly even in the so well-publicised absence of a satisfactory opera house. (No need to revive that old story.) What Diarnand achieved was frequently magnifi- cent. On the other hand it threatened other Parts of the Festival. Drummond reversed that process, Dunlop is following in his footsteps. Washington Opera are bringing a Menotti double-bill, Scottish Opera offer a new production of Cavalli's Baroque Orton; nothing there to compare with Diamand's famous Carmen, nothing, I Would guess, to bring opera enthusiasts shuttling north. But it should be said that One good reason for the Festival's former concentration on opera hasn't existed for a while now. We do after all have an excellent indigenous Opera Company, and It has not been the case for 20 years that
native opera-goers are starved of quality productions.
Drummond's particular enthusiasm was dance. His influence is still apparent. The Royal Thai Ballet will be at the King's in the second week, and the Komische Oper Ballet from East Berlin offer a new version of Swan Lake at the Playhouse the same week. The high spot of the ballet program- me however must be the appearance of Nureyev and his Paris Opera Ballet at the Playhouse in the last week. This is signifi- cant for two reasons: first, it should help to counter the 'third week hang-over' which the shifting forward of the whole Festival by one week is already designed to correct. Second, Nureyev's company have been sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland to the tune of what they describe as 'a five-figure investment'. The Bank won't be more precise on the grounds that they consider this 'commercial information' but their public relations manager has been quoted as welcoming the opportunity 'to get involved with a prestigious internation- al company and prove we're not parochial'. He adds also that this 'could be the last chance, for a lot of people up here, to see Nureyev'; the Bank is therefore bringing excellence to its home city.
The importance of this sponsorship is two-fold. In the first place it is necessary if the Festival is to survive. Though it is possible (just) to exaggerate Edinburgh's traditional meanness towards its festival, the fact remains that the level of funding from the City and the Scottish Arts Council has meant that an extraordinarily high proportion of revenue (about 40 per cent) has had to be generated by ticket sales (extraordinarily high, that is, by compari- son with other festivals); quite a lot too has always come in the form of concealed funding of foreign companies and orches- tras by their native cities, willing to pay for the prestige of appearing here. Now the Scottish Arts Council has announced that its grant will be frozen; this means a reduction in real terms. Undoubtedly, new revenue can only be found from business sponsors, who will contribute £300,000 this year, or 16 per cent of the £1.9 million budget. In the second place, the source of such sponsorship is likely to ensure that the nature of the Festival remains unchanged; for it is a curious feature of our times that public bodies are quite likely to make ges- tures towards populism in the arts, but big firms want to be associated with quality.
Of course this may also mean they fight shy of experimental work. But then that has hardly ever been a feature of the Festival. There's certainly little sign of that in the
music, drama or visual arts, though all are full of interest. The trend of associated exhibitions continues: perhaps the pick of them is the Treasures of the Smithsonian Institution at the Royal Scottish Museum. There's a deal of EAstern European music, including Prokofiev's 'Alexander Nevsky Cantata', originally written as a filmscore for Eisenstein. The drama sees the Berlin- er Ensemble's first Xisit to Britain for 19 years, with scenes from Goethe's Faust and Brecht's Galileo (don't they get tired of doing Brecht?) The marron glace of the drama programme is the appearance of Delphine Seyrig as Sarah Bernhardt in John Murrell's Sarah et le Cri de la Lan- gouste; it may have Festival veterans bab- bling their memories of the great Edwige Feuillere. On the Fringe, in the Assembly Rooms (which after decades of languishing as the Festival Club have blossomed as a remarkable theatrical centre) there is Lind- say Anderson's production of The Playboy of the Western World. A strong American representation is evidence of Dunlop's long association with American theatre — it includes Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach in the farcical comedy Twice Round the Park.
That should at least make what the Festival press office calls 'the enormous number of Americans' feel at home. Brought over by the favourable exchange rate, they have already, as I write a week before the Festival stars contributed to ticket sales approaching £500,000, that is, up £100,000 on last year's advance sales and clearly set to surpass the £700,000 taken at the box office in 1983.
Finally, there are other festivals on: the Fringe, the Film, the Tattoo, and Richard Demarco. His 'Demarcation' offers a prog- ramme many cities would be proud to host. His grant too has been cut by the Scottish Arts Council. But that is another story.
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