Welcome to Sydney Festival 2010
A German Hamlet, an Irish Giselle, a concert of pirate songs, and the Australian debut of the legendary Al Green are among the highlights of Sydney Festival 2010.
Tickets are on sale now for January's festival, details of which were revealed last week by festival director Lindy Hume.
"Sydney Festival exists to deepen Sydney's relationship with the world, to celebrate the real Sydney, our Sydney, our complex, contradictory, creative, messy, marvellous city," she said.
Hume promised a festival of big ideas, dealing with concepts such as happiness, dark matter, reality, optimism and the Pacific. "But it's true this festival is also about having gloriously hedonistic, deeply shallow, unashamed la dolce vita fun," she added.
The 2010 festival shows a continued commitment to free and cheap events.
"In many ways the free program is at the heart of Sydney Festival, and I'm delighted to say the 2010 free program is bigger than ever," Hume said. "In 2010 Sydney Festival will perform to around 700,000 people in a free program that features an astonishing line-up of world artists – Australian Indigenous supergroup The Black Arm Band, soul legend Al Green, West African stars Toumani Diabaté and Vieux Farka Touré and Indian megastar AR Rahman. Our weekend Domain series features Sydney Symphony and our new Summer Sounds, and on the last weekend we welcome back Mazda Opera in the Domain to the Festival portfolio, with Leonard Bernstein's Candide."
"I'm proud and delighted to welcome you to celebrate with us at Sydney Festival 2010."
Lord Mayor Clover Moore commented that Hume had done a remarkable job programming the festival in the wake of the global financial crisis.
"We can assure you, you wouldn't have even known there was a GFC when you see this festival," the Lord Mayor said.
Highlights of Sydney Festival 2010 include:
· Festival First Night across the city's streets, lanes and parks
· German director Thomas Ostermeier with his radical retake on Hamlet
· Ireland's Fabulous Beast's macabre and beautiful Giselle
· the hottest director on London's West End, Rupert Goold, with his Six Characters in Search of an Author starring Ian McDiarmid and Catherine McCormack
· and American director extraordinaire Peter Sellars with his magnificent Stravinsky double bill, Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms with Sydney Symphony, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and a stellar line-up of soloists
· Hal Willner's concert of pirate songs Rogue's Gallery featuring, amongst others, Marianne Faithfull, Tim Robbins, and Sarah Blasko
· Sydney Theatre Company's Optimism with the irrepressible Frank Woodley
· Choreography's it-girl, Canadian Crystal Pite and her company Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM perform their new work Dark Matters
· In his first visit to Australia, the much-revered Al Green, who brings his gospel and soul to Festival First Night, as well as two nights at the State Theatre
· luscious alternate-pop band, Grizzly Bear
· Mali maestro of the kora, Toumani Diabaté
· country-noir chanteuse Neko Case
· From India come 43 Rajasthani musicians in a custom-built ‘magic box' staging with The Manganiyar Seduction
· At the Seymour Centre, it's back to electronic music of the early 1980s, with Circa 1979: Signal to Noise, incorporating an exhibition, talks, and Keynote plus concert by John Cale at the Enmore Theatre
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