This evening sees the Opening Concert of the Edinburgh International Festival with Robert Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri. It is the story of a peri, a winged and fairy like creature, that has come down from fallen angels but is able to return to paradise through the tear of a repentant sinner. It has not been performed at the Edinburgh International Festival before.
Sponsored for the first time by Bank of Scotland, Sir Roger Norrington conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus under Christopher Bell and Susan Gritton, soprano, Maximillian Schmitt, tenor, and Lydia Teuscher, soprano.
The Opening Concert is performed in the Usher Hall and will be a fitting start to the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival which looks to the vibrant and diverse cultures of Asia.