UNIT 3. EDINBURGH – THE FESTIVAL CITY

I. Read the texts and comment on their contents.

CARNIVAL IN GERMANY

The carnival season in Germany (also called the "Fifth Season") officially begins on November 11th, at 11:11 a.m. In this magic hour, the "Council of Eleven" comes together to plan the events for the upcoming festivities. The official hats of the councils members: Colorful fool's caps with little bells. The actual celebrations of the German carnival take place 40 days before Easter; they are the last big party before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Check out the Dates for German Carnival Celebrations.

The celebrations kick off with "Women’s Carnival" on Thursday before Ash Wednesday. Ladies, this is your day: You can kiss any man you like after cutting off his tie. The next highlight is Rose Monday: Marching bands, dancers, and floats parade down the streets, throwing confetti, sweets, and toys. The elaborate floats often show caricatured figures mocking politicians and other personalities. Thousands of dressed-up Germans are flocking the streets every year to watch this spectacle. On Shrove Tuesday, costume balls are held all over Germany, while the quiet Ash Wednesday marks the end of the frenzied fun.

Almost every German city celebrates carnival and organizes a street parade in its city center. The best and most traditional carnival festivities take place in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Münster, Aachen, and Mainz.

VOCABULARY ITEMS

Easter – Пасха

Ash Wednesday – среда на первой неделе великого поста

Lent – Великий пост

to kick off – начинаться

a highlight – важное событие

to march – маршировать

to throw – бросать

to elaborate – разрабатывать

to mock – пародировать

to flock – стекаться, скапливаться

Shrove Tuesday – вторник на масленой неделе

frenzied – бурный

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual festival of performing arts in Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music (especially classical music), theatre, opera and dance from around the world to perform. The festival also hosts a series of visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops.

The idea of the Festival with a remit to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit" and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe took form in the wake of the Second World War. The idea of creating an international festival within the UK was first conceived by Rudolf Bing, the General Manager of Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and Audrey Mildmay (wife of John Christie) during a wartime tour of a small-scale Glyndebourne production of The Beggar's Opera.

Rudolf Bing co-founded the Festival with Henry Harvey Wood, Head of the British Council in Scotland, Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, and a group of civic leaders from the City of Edinburgh, in particular Sir John Falconer.

Bing had looked at several English cities before shifting his focus to Scotland and settling on Edinburgh, a city he had visited and admired in 1939. Harvey Wood described the meeting at which the idea was hatched.

The Edinburgh International Music of Festival and Drama was first discussed over a lunch table in a restaurant in Hanover Square, London, towards the end of 1944. Rudolf Bing, convinced that musical and operatic festivals on anything like the pre-war scale were unlikely to be held in any of the shattered and impoverished centers for many years to come, was anxious to consider and investigate the possibility of staging such a Festival somewhere in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1946. He was convinced and he convinced my colleagues and myself that such an enterprise, successfully conducted, might at this moment of European time, be of more than temporary significance and might establish in Britain a centre of world resort for lovers of music, drama, opera, ballet and the graphic arts.

Certain preconditions were obviously required of such a centre. It should be a town of reasonable size, capable of absorbing and entertaining anything between 50,000 and 150,000 visitors over a period of three weeks to a month. It should, like Salzburg, have considerable scenic and picturesque appeal and it should be set in a country likely to be attractive to tourists and foreign visitors. It should have sufficient number of theatres, concert halls and open spaces for the adequate staging of a programme of an ambitious and varied character. Above all it should be a city likely to embrace the opportunity and willing to make the festival a major preoccupation not only in the City Chambers but in the heart and home of every citizen, however modest. Greatly daring but not without confidence I recommended Edinburgh as the centre and promised to make preliminary investigations.

Wood approached Falconer, who enthusiastically welcomed the initiative on behalf of the city. As it was too late to finalize arrangements for 1946, plans were made for the following year. The first International Festival (and the first "Festival Fringe", although it wasn't known as such in the first year) took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947. The Festival has since taken place every August.

The first Festival concentrated mainly on classical music, a highlight being concerts given by the Vienna Philharmonic, reunited with their erstwhileconductor Bruno Walter who had left Europe after the Nazi occupation of his homeland. The Festival's first dramatic success came in the following year when an adaptation of Sir David Lyndsay's The Thrie Estaites was performed to great acclaim for the first time since 1552 in the Assembly Hall on the Mound. The British Army's desire to showcase itself during the Festival period led to the independent staging of the first Edinburgh Military Tattoo, featuring displays of piping and dancing, in 1950. This annual event has come to be regardedas an integral part of the official festival, though it continues to be organized separately.

In 1999, the Festival opened a new central box office and information centre in The Hub, a converted church on Castle hill, directly below Edinburgh Castle. Originally built as the Tollbooth Church (1842-44) to house the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, its tall gothic spire is the highest point in central Edinburgh (outside of the Castle) and a landmark visible for miles around.

The Edinburgh International Festival will be brought forward in 2015 to coincide with the Fringe festival held in the city every year, according to the festival's director designate Fergus Linehan.

VOCABULARY ITEMS

to host – организовать

a remit – задача

wartime – Военное время

to conceive – задумывать

small-scale – ограниченный по размеру

civic – гражданский, городской

to hatch – обдумывать

to convince – убеждать

shattered – разрушенный

impoverished – обедневший

anxious – взволнованный

significance – значение

world resort – мировой курорт

to establish – основывать

preconditions – непременное условие

to absorb – принимать

to entertain – развлекать

appeal – популярность, привлекательность

adequate staging – надлежащая постановка

to embrace – охватывать, заключать в себе

preoccupation – увлечение, необходимость

to dare – решаться

preliminary – предварительный

an approach – подход

acclaim – бурные аплодисменты

converted – реконструированный

to coincide – совпадать

to designate – определять

II. Exercises

a. Answer the questions.

1. When do the actual celebrations of the German carnival take place?

2. What do they kick off with?

3. How is Carnival celebrated in Germany?

4. Whom was the idea of creating an international festival within the UK first conceivedby? And when?

5. What preconditions were obviously required of such a centre?

6. What did the first Festivals concentrate on?

7. What happened in 1999?

b. Find the English equivalents from the text for following words and word combinations:

Предстоящие праздники, красочные шапки, проверить даты, стартовать, отрезать, марширующие группы людей, насмешливые, наряженные/ разодетые, зрелище, знаменовать завершение чего-либо.

c. Find in text the information connected with the following dates and figures:

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