Bergen International Festival (23 May–6 June 2012) celebrates Diamond Jubilee season with winning mix of new productions, imaginative interpretations and unique events

EFA, the European Festivals Association, celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding at the 2012 Bergen International Festival.

Entering its 60th year in 2012, the Bergen International Festival is the largest of its kind in the Nordic countries and presents music, theater, dance, opera and visual art. One of the highlights in 2012 will be a concert version of Berlioz’ The Damnation of Faust with Festival favourite Bryn Terfel and conductor Sir Andrew Davis.

Stefan Herheim is regarded as one of the most significant and innovative opera directors of our time. Next year he will be opening the Bergen International Festival with the love drama Xerxes by Handel.

Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra is internationally acclaimed thanks to El Sistema, the Venezuelan state music education system, which provides free tuition to over 400 000 young people, many of them from deprived areas. In Norway the orchestra will perform alongside an equal number of youngsters from Norway’s Arts schools nationwide.

The Shanghai Theatre Academy, due to perform a Jon Fosse play at the 2011 Bergen International Festival, has cancelled its appearance without any explanation.

Bergen International Festival has engaged composer Henrik Hellstenius as curator for a series of concert performances at this year’s festival. This unique project involving more than 30 musicians will explore the dividing line between music and theatre. The series of concerts, which have been given the title ‘The Theatre of the Ear’, is Bergen International Festival’s biggest ever venture into the world of contemporary music.

Numerous theatre productions and films have been based on Halldór Laxness’s books, but until now Gerpla had been neither staged nor filmed. Baltazar Kormákur felt it was a daring challenge, but the Iceland National Theatre production has been a great success in Reykjavik.

Festival director Per Boye Hansen has been appointed new leader of the Committee of the International Ibsen Award.

The Norwegian violin virtuoso of the 19th Century, Ole Bull played to crowds in the tens of thousands on his tours of Europe and the USA. Robert Schumann called him ‘the greatest of all’ and his friend Franz Liszt performed with him on several occasions.

The Bergen International Festival has joined forces with a number of other European cultural institutions to create a new musical theatre performance with Greenland as the starting point. This production has been titled ±0, and will be staged by Swiss director Christoph Marthaler.

Bergen International Festival presents a varied programme of concerts and new theatrical productions, including productions form Greenland, Iceland and China. The relationship between tradition and innovation across generations is a recurring theme this year.

This autumn a Chinese audience could experience Norway's greatest contemporary playwright for the very first time. The production is now coming to Bergen.

You’re invited to spend a night in the old Bergen county jail during the 2011 Festival. The building has been empty for twenty years. – The prison and the stories in its walls create a unique setting for experiencing art, says Festival Director Per Boye Hansen.

Bergen International Festival 2011 takes place between 25 May and 8 June with more than 100 different performances. The full programme will be launched on 13 January and tickest are on sale from 17 January.

Stravinsky’s monumental opera-oratorio from 1927 is counted among the greatest operas of the twentieth century. During the 2011 Bergen International Festival it will be performed in full stage version in Grieghallen, with the Norwegian Eirik Stubø as its director.

On the final day of the 2010 festival, the director launched a new project. From next year the final days of the festival will be devoted to a grand festival for string players in the spirit of Ole Bull.

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Kenneth Walton from The Scotsman spent three days at the Bergen International Festival 2010.

Bergen is known for being the black metal capital of Norway. It might be due to the heavy rain, but Kristian Espedal (Gaahl), whom is currently rehearsing for the first black metal musical, explains:

Historian Natalie Zemon Davis will discuss the relationship between art and science with choreographer Jo Strømgren when she visits Bergen to receive the Holberg Prize.

Hell und lang sind die späten Frühlingstage in Norwegen, einem Land, das bekannt dafür ist, das Leben aus einer ‚bewundernswert erhellten’ Perspektive zu betrachten – wie seine blühende Musik- und Theaterszene zeigt. 2010 präsentieren sich die Festspiele Bergen jedoch auch von einer düsteren Seite.

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 El tan famoso como, para algunos, escandaloso director de escena español Calixto Bieito y la pianista clásica venezolana Gabriela Montero, conocida internacionalmente por sus improvisaciones al piano, son dos de las estrellas invitadas este año al festival internacional de Bergen

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Philip Glass Ensemble and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra open the 2010 Bergen International Festival with a cult film and live music. The performance will be the European premiere of the orchestral version of Koyaanisqatsi.

Festival director Per Boye Hansen hosted a programme launch where showmanship and acrobatics were center stage.

Calixto Bieito is the man behind the world premiere of a modern passion during the 2010 Bergen International Festival. – This is a performance about the death and life angst of our time, he says.

Specialists on string instruments from all over the world will gather in the city for the Festival and our instrument exhibition will feature lectures by renowned violin experts.

‘The Bergen International Festival sends strong signals to the established centres of art in old Europe. The new comes now more than ever from the periphery,’ writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

'Every single day I take the train to the villa and back. All my ideas get used up there, masses of unborn works are devoured by the soil. When you eventually come to visit, you will only need to dig and Norwegian choirs, orchestras and piano works will come flowing up from the ground.’ Edvard Grieg.

The Bergen International Festival, Den Nye Opera (the New Opera) and the Norwegian Armed Forces Band, Western Norway combine forces to produce a large-scale opera during the 2010 festival in the beautiful surroundings of the historic parade ground at Bergenhus Fortress.

In 2010 we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Ole bull's birth by presenting a comprehensive intstrument exhibition and many concerts.

The late spring days are long in Norway, a country that tends to take an admirably enlightened view on life – as its thriving music and theatre scenes demonstrate; but in 2010 there will be a dark side to Bergen International Festival.

Fright and delight are keywords for this year's festival program, writes the Festival Director, Per Boye Hansen.