Jonathan Mills, the director of the Edinburgh International Festival, had several possible choices for a 2009 festival "theme," given the anniversaries associated with composers such as Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47). The year has also been designated as a year of "Scottish homecoming" — triggered, no doubt, by yet another anniversary, that of the Scottish national Bard, Robert Burns (1759–96). In fact, all of these disparate themes were observed — in one way or another — during this year's festival, which ran from August 14 through September 6. But Mills's overall thematic choice for 2009 was the Age of Enlightenment, which meant that works from the eighteenth century, particularly those by Bach and Handel, were featured prominently. Baroque instruments and countertenors were everywhere.

For example, a wonderful series of nine concerts in Greyfriars Kirk (Church) featured a plethora of Bach cantatas — plus a bit of Buxtehude and Handel — performed by such groups as the Huelgas Ensemble, the Bach Collegium Japan, the Ricercar Consort, Cantus Cölln, The Sixteen and others. By itself, this series would have been sufficient feast for any Baroque fan, but there was much more on the festival menu — in fact, some of the groups presented in Greyfriars also performed in the much larger Usher Hall, with more vocal music offered than has been usual in recent seasons. The Sixteen under Harry Christophers provided a sprightly and amusing concert performance of Purcell's The Fairy Queen; John Eliot Gardiner led the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists in an exquisite performance of Part I of Handel's Israel in Egypt and yet more Bach cantatas, delivering music-making on the highest level. Speaking of Handel, the Festival's opening concert — an impressive Judas Maccabaeus, with William Christie conducting the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra — was a somewhat incongruous programming choice, given that the oratorio was written to celebrate the 1746 victory of the English Duke of Cumberland over Scotland's Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. Still, Christie led a performance that set a high standard for the rest of the Festival.

That standard was upheld consistently throughout the Festival's more than three weeks of presentations. Particularly memorable was mezzo Joyce DiDonato, who sang Haydn's Scena di Berenice brilliantly, despite unexpected obstacles. Just after the mezzo sang "Woe is me, the day darkens," it really did — that is, the stage lights went completely out. As conductor Roger Norrington commented, that effect was "a bit too romantic." When the lights returned after a brief pause, Norrington, DiDonato and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment took it from the top, only to have the illumination absent itself again. Finally, with a few work lights and the house lights up full, the orchestra was able to see the music, and the concert came to a triumphant conclusion.

Not all of the Festival offerings were from the Baroque era, of course: Stéphane Denève led the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus in a thunderously romantic account of Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, with Patricia Bardon, Loïc Félix, and Franz Hawlata its stirring solo trio. Mendelssohn was represented by a performance of his Elijah (sung in German, as Elias), with Philippe Herreweghe leading the Collegium Vocale Gent, Coro dell' Accademia Chigiana and Orchestre des Champs-Élysées; Florian Boesch was the performance's dramatic Elijah. Also hardly Baroque was the final Usher Hall concert, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, impressively performed by the Hallé Orchestra, National Youth Choir of Scotland and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus under Mark Elder. Paul Groves was a sensitive Gerontius, ably supported by Alice Coote and Iain Paterson. In another twentieth-century program, Dawn Upshaw was the engaging soloist in Luciano Berio's Folksongs and the Mahler Fourth Symphony, with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, conducted by David Zinman.

Mention should be made of the vocal recitals presented in the intimate Queen's Hall. The most enjoyable of the Queen's Hall series was the joint recital of baritone Michael Volle and bass Franz Hawlata, with Helmut Deutsch at the piano: all three artists were in top form, offering rousing singing and playing with flashes of humor. The Collegium Vocale Gent offered a delightful program of Haydn part songs. Scots soprano Lisa Milne and Edinburgh native Malcolm Martineau offered an interesting program that mixed songs by rarely performed Scottish composers (F. G. Scott, James MacMillan, R. R. Bennett) with Schubert and Schumann settings of translations of Scottish texts. Countertenor Bejun Mehta and Julius Drake presented a varied recital that included a particularly well-done account of Beethoven's "An die ferne Geliebte," and Christopher Maltman expertly traversed Schoenberg's arrangement of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Hebrides Ensemble. Recitals by Christoph Prégardien (with Andreas Staier, fortepiano) and Bernarda Fink (with Anthony Spiri) would have benefited from a little more variety, though both artists sang expertly.

Two further vocal recitals were held in the cavernous Usher Hall — obviously because their performers' reputations could sell more tickets. Sir Willard White (with Eugene Asti) and Bryn Terfel (with Malcolm Martineau) did just that, and programmed enjoyable, if not particularly adventurous selections. White included some settings of Robert Burns, and Terfel concluded his performance with what he called "Songs from Celtic Lands," such as "Loch Lomond" and "Danny Boy." He even got the audience to sing once or twice. It might not have been high art, but it was fun.

The Edinburgh Festival always includes a healthy serving of concert opera in its season, and 2009 was no exception. Mendelssohn's version of Handel's serenata/masque Acis and Galatea, buoyantly conducted by Nicholas McGegan, featured a rather serious Acis in Christoph Prégardien and a delightful Galatea in Dominique Labelle. Another Handel work, this one definitely an opera, was also presented in concert form: Rinaldo, with Masaaki Suzuki pacing the Bach Collegium Japan, was one of the best performances of the entire Festival. Clint van der Linde sang the title role brilliantly, leading a strong cast, with the two villains, Argante (Roderick Williams) and the sorceress Armida (the strong-voiced Rachel Nicholls) especially fine. Maki Moria was charming as the heroine Almirena.

David Robertson's performance of Macbeth with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra provided a rare opportunity to hear Verdi's ballet music in context. Lado Ataneli's Macbeth was smoothly sung, if somewhat bland dramatically, while the Lady Macbeth of Susan Neves was quite the opposite, displaying a great deal of dramatic intensity but uneven vocalism. Vsevolod Grivnov was a competent Macduff, and John Relyea contributed a sonorous Banquo. Simone Young elicited a vibrant performance from her Hamburg State Opera forces for Der Fliegende Holländer; although the cast — including Franz Grundheber (Dutchman), Diogenes Randes (Daland) and Eva Johanson (Senta) — was just competent, this was an exciting performance because of Young's energetic conducting.

Not one of the four staged operas at this year's Festival was a conventional mounting of a conventional work. The most straightforward of the quartet was an opera by Handel, Admeto, re di Tessaglia, imported from the Göttingen Handel Festival. But in Doris Dörrie's staging, the mythological action did not take place in Thessaly at all, but in medieval Japan. King Admeto and his brother Trasimede were samurai, Ercole (Hercules) was a sumo wrestler, and a number of roles were taken by the dance troupe Mamu, who were successively Furies, Soldiers, Sheep, and Deer. Upon her return from Hades, from whence she was freed by Hercules, Alceste was accompanied by "Butoh" dancer Tadashi Endo, who represented her spirit. A visually most engaging production, it was well sung by the Göttingen cast, especially countertenor Tim Mead as Admeto, his two loves Alceste and Antigona (Marie Arnet and Kristen Blaise respectively) and the robust Ercole of William Berger. The FestspielOrchester Göttingen was enthusiastically conducted by Nicholas McGegan.

The Handspring Puppet Company and the Ricercar Consort collaborated on Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria; director, animator, and designer William Kentridge devised a production in which every part was portrayed by half-life-sized puppets handled by a puppeteer, with an accompanying singer — sort of an operatic Avenue Q — all backed by projections of drawings taken from sources such as x-rays and MRIs. Musically, the edited score was well performed, and the puppets provided some comic relief, although all the visual business was often a distraction.

Less conventional was St. Kilda, Island of the Birdmen—in fact, it is hardly an opera at all. The piece is the story of the 1930 evacuation of St. Kilda, the westernmost of Scottish islands: the uprooting of a people "who had never known trees, war, mirrors, or the pronoun 'I.' " The tale is told through a combination of music, film, dialogue and acrobatics and was performed in Gaelic, French and English, with no translations provided. Even so, it was a strangely moving story, and the varied styles were melded together seamlessly. The original concept is that of Lew Bogdan, the music is by David P. Graham and Jean-Paul Dessy, and the performers were the Choeur et acrobates des Hainauts and the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. Particularly haunting were the Gaelic songs sung by Alyth McCormack, though it would have been helpful to know what her words meant. The astounding feats of the three acrobats added a special dimension to the production.

Actus tragicus — a conception of the late stage director Herbert Wernicke, first presented in Basel in 2000 — was a staging of a series of Bach cantatas, all of which deal with the transience and futility of humankind's earthly existence. The production was from the Staatsoper Stuttgart, conducted by Michael Hofstetter. The set, designed by Wernicke, represented what appeared to be a cross-section of a five-story tenement, which Wernicke described as a "doll's house." In the basement was laid the figure of Christ, as if in the tomb, while above various activities from ordinary life were carried out: a woman was ironing shirts, two lovers met, people watched television, a Christmas party was in progress, etc., etc. Through it all wandered a mysterious masked figure that represented Death. Throughout the singing of the cantatas by the chorus and soloists, the vignettes of action were repeated, seemingly at random. At the end, the characters left the stage, and — in a commentary on the modern world's obsession with activity — the last phrase sung was "Man, thou must perish."

LUTHER WADE

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