Edinburgh International Festival was established to champion the civilising power of European high culture in a spirit of postwar healing. But its lustre and mission have now been largely eclipsed by the viral spread of its anarchic bastard offspring, the Fringe. In competition with the latter’s potty-mouthed stand-ups and numberless student hopefuls, the dignified old Festival proper struggles to make much mark on the hordes who descend on the city in August, inflating prices and infuriating the residents.

Perhaps the kids will love it, but if this is the future of ballet, then count me out

Nicola Benedetti, a splendid woman and a wonderful violinist, is now in her third year directing this beleaguered institution. She hasn’t at her disposal the generous budgets financing comparable festivals in Salzburg and Aix, and she’s been charged with ‘bringing in younger audiences’ without antagonising the conservative loyalists. Both these challenges make it more difficult for her, and I don’t feel her programming has yet struck gold. 

The shortfall is most evident in opera – expensive and complicated to import, and in any case not a lot that’s any good is available in August. But her immediate predecessor Fergus Linehan landed, among much else, Cecilia Bartoli in Norma and Asmik Grigorian in Barrie Kosky’s production of Eugene Onegin. Certainly nothing of that quality was on offer this (or last) year.

The one fully staged opera was Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice,........

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