Fantastic festival

I have just attended La Bohème, the last of the nine operas presented at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. It was excellent, and presented by Turin Opera, who also brought us Macbeth and the Verdi Requiem. Fergus Linehan, the new festival director, is to be congratulated in putting opera back at the centre of the festival as it was 70 years ago in 1947.

Over the three weeks of the festival we have had a superb music programme in the morning concerts from the Queens Hall, broadcast to the world by the BBC, and great concerts every evening at the Usher Hall.

Some locals have been critical of the crowds in Edinburgh during the festivals but they should be grateful that we are the home to the greatest arts festival in the world, and it is worth reminding them that two-thirds of people attending the festival are Scots. Many other cities would give much to host such a successful festival and, of course, it contributes much to the local economy.

This is the 70th Edinburgh Festival and I have been attending them since 1963. I can confidently say that it is in good health and I hope it will continue for many years to come.

HUGH KERR Wharton Square, Edinburgh

Saturday’s interesting BBC2 programme on 70 years of the Edinburgh Festival had two minor faults.

The renowned conductor Bruno Walter did not merely say that working with the composer Gustav Mahler and the sublime but earthy contralto Kathleen Ferrier were his greatest musical experiences. He said: “The greatest thing in music in my life was to have known Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler – in that order”, an important qualification.

Her earthy humour was exemplified by her description of modern atonal works as “three farts and a raspberry, orchestrated”, which mirrored the robust quote attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham when asked if he had conducted such a composer’s piece: “No, but I think on alighting from a taxi once, I trod on some.”

The programme also stated or implied that Marlene Dietrich’s sole festival visit (which I attended) in 1964 was the first to feature late-night performances after “Edinburgh’s normal 10pm bedtime”. But Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor put on a splendid show entitled Songs of Battle, Bed and Bottlewell after 11pm in 1961 in the Lyceum, which I also enjoyed after an evening in the King’s Theatre.

JOHN BIRKETT Horseleys Park, St Andrews