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Opera for babies to feature at Manchester International Festival
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A musical about Lancashire’s cotton industry, an opera for babies and New Order reworking their back catalogue with a 12-strong synthesiser ensemble are some of the highlights of this summer’s Manchester International Festival (MIF).
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Founded 10 years ago as an attempt to market Manchester as a global cultural hub, MIF now attracts some of the world’s top talent. This time, renowned German director Thomas Ostermeier has chosen to premiere his new play in the city rather than in Berlin at the Schaubühne, where he is artistic director.
Adapted by Ostermeier from Didier Eribon’s bestselling memoir, Returning to Reims is described as “an urgent reaction on the new world order”. It recalls how the French philosopher and radical social theorist had to reevaluate his life after his father’s death, when he discovered his family had switched allegiance from Communism to the far-right Front National.
Also premiering at MIF this year is Fatherland, a new show about contemporary fatherhood created by Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham, Karl Hyde from Underworld and playwright Simon Stephens (Punk Rock, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time).
Another hot ticket is likely to be Party Skills for the end of the World by members of the mischievous Shunt collective, an interactive show which promises to teach ticketholders the essential skills needed to survive and savour life when everything you’ve taken for granted has gone – from starting a fire and making balloon animals to mixing the perfect Martini and skinning a rabbit.
The festival will open on 29 June with a free, high-rise catwalk show in Piccadilly Gardens featuring some of Manchester’s most intriguing characters. What Is the City but the People?, created from an idea by artist Jeremy Deller, will take place on a 100 metre-long runway raised high above the grubby square, with organisers still looking for volunteers to take part. Mancunians are also invited to host a show in their front rooms, for a strand called Festival In My House, which promises a global dance and food festival in Cheetham Hill and a music festival in New Islington.
One of Europe’s top choreographers is also showing new work in the rainy city. Boris Charmatz will use Mayfield, an abandoned railway depot, to stage his new show, which features a 25-strong ensemble of dancers performing, in succession, 10,000 Gestures – none repeated, every one unique.
Manchester’s musical history will be celebrated across the festival, with New Order taking over the old Old Granada Studios, abandoned by Coronation Street for Salford’s Media City. They will stage a special series of intimate shows, created in collaboration with visual artist Liam Gillick, who has previously presented solo exhibitions at venues such as Tate Britain and MoMA in New York; and composer-arranger Joe Duddell, a fellow son of Manchester and a frequent collaborator with the band.
For New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.., the group will be deconstructing, rethinking and rebuilding a wealth of material from throughout their career. To perform it live, they will be joined by a 12-strong synthesiser ensemble from the Royal Northern College of Music, with Joe Duddell providing the orchestrations.
The band, as well as their antecedents, Joy Division, will be celebrated in a special exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. Curated by Matthew Higgs and Jon Savage with archivist Johan Kugelberg, True Faith is centred on four decades’ worth of works from artists such as Julian Schnabel, Jeremy Deller, Liam Gillick, Mark Leckey and Slater Bradley, all directly inspired by the two groups.
Upper Campfield Market Hall will see the first staging of Cotton Panic!, a musical drama co-written by Jane Horrocks about how the Cotton Famine in the US brought Lancashire to its knees created by Horrocks, Nick Vivian and Wrangler Industrial.
MIF hopes to entice the next generation of culture lovers with a pioneering piece of music theatre written by Scottish Opera’s Liam Paterson and directed by Improbable’s Phelim McDermott. Bambino promises to reinvent operatic language and traditions for children at an age when their minds are wide open to new sounds, images and experiences. Babies will be free to crawl around during the performance, interacting with singers, musicians and each other.
