Qualla: Edinburgh International Festival

Edinburgh International Festival: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The festival owes its existence to a horse. In 1944, deep in the war, Lord Rosebery's Ocean Swell won the Jockey Club Cup, one of only two major races still being run while the bombs fell. Rosebery handed the winnings - around 10,000 pounds - to a small group dreaming of an arts festival that might 'heal the wounds of war.' Edinburgh Town Council matched the gift. John Maynard Keynes's Arts Council added more. Three years later, in August 1947, Rudolf Bing opened the first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama in a city still on rations.

Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh International Festival: The Glyndebourne Lunch

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea took shape over a wartime lunch in a London restaurant on Hanover Square, where Bing - Austrian-born general manager of Glyndebourne Opera - met Henry Harvey Wood of the British Council, Sidney Newman of Edinburgh University, and the arts patron Lady Rosebery. Bing argue...

Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh International Festival: The First Three Weeks

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. The opening season ran from 22 August to 11 September 1947, with concerts, opera, ballet, drama, film, and Scottish piping on the castle Esplanade. The Vienna Philharmonic appeared under Bruno Walter, who had left Europe after the Anschluss in 1938 - the reunion of conductor and ...

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

Edinburgh International Festival: Opera Without an Opera House

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Edinburgh had no purpose-built opera house, and still does not - the Festival Theatre on Nicolson Street, a converted Victorian variety hall, was only remodelled for the role in 1994. The founders solved the problem by importing companies. Glyndebourne brought two productions eac...

Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh International Festival: The Fringe and the Family

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Festival Fringe Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. From its first year the festival generated a shadow. Companies not invited to the official programme arrived anyway and performed wherever they could find a stage - the basis of what became the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, now the largest arts festival on earth. The Film Festival a...

Image: Festival Fringe Society | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh International Festival: Where It Happens

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Maccoinnich~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The Usher Hall on Lothian Road, built in 1914, has hosted classical concerts since 1947; the King's Theatre and Royal Lyceum offer drama and opera; the Edinburgh Playhouse on Greenside Place is the largest theatre in Scotland at over 3,000 seats. The Queen's Hall, a chapel conver...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Maccoinnich~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0