From Helani to Depardieu, all at Baalbeck Festival

30 May 2014

BEIRUT: The program for the Baalbeck International Festival 2014 was announced Thursday during a news conference at the Baalbek acropolis.

Tensions in the Bekaa Valley made Baalbeck organizers decide to stage last years event in La Magnanerie, a former silk-making facility in Saad al-Boushrieh, Jdeideh. Evidently things have improved, as the 2014 edition will return to its traditional home in the Bacchus Temple.

As festival committee chairwoman Nayla de Freij explained at the conference, the security situation has changed for the better. Freij explained that everything would be done to reassure the public: A security plan has already proven to be effective, and there will be other security measures put in place on the roads leading to Baalbeks main sites.

The festivities will kick off on July 30, when Bekaa Valley-born performer Assi El Helani transports his audience through a musical fantasia entitled Assi ... El Helm. Scheduled to be staged over three nights, the performance recounts tales from the vocalists musical journey, from his humble beginnings to the celebrity he enjoys today.

To make this production even more memorable, Helani has composed a tune especially for the town of Baalbek, accompanied by an orchestra and dancers.

Following Helanis gigs, on Aug. 3 is a concert by Angela Gheorghiu. The Romanian soprano got her break in an adaptation of Verdis opera La Traviata, and since then has come to be grouped among the elite of opera virtuosi. People who dont know the diversity of the sopranos talent will be able to discover her unique tessitura, blending force with tenderness.

Tunisian singer-songwriter Dhafer Youssef will return to Lebanon with his Incantations show, featuring oud solos and vocal-driven tunes from his 2013 CD Bird Requiems, which has so far taken him to the U.S., France and Norway.

Youssefs music has been characterized as the perfect harmony of jazz and Middle Eastern rhythms. This show will see him accompanied for the very first time by Turkish clarinetist Husnu Senlendirici.

Fans of circus and dance acts may be pleased to learn that Canadian troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main will be in Baalbek for a one night affair on Aug. 16. Doigts has performed at the opening ceremonies of the three separate Olympic Games Turin, Vancouver and Sochi, on the strength of outstanding choreography, with a fine eye for detail. Critics suggest Sequence 8, their latest project, will seduce young and old alike.

Famed stage and screen actor Gerard Depardieu has been in the news lately, both for his turn in Abel Ferraras Welcome to New York, a portrayal of certain moments in the life of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan, and the drama that saw the actor relocate to Moscow and become a Russian citizen.

Depardieu will close the Baalbeck festival on Aug. 31, co-starring with French actress Fanny Ardantin La Musica Deuxieme, an adaptation of a prose work by Margueurite Dumas, which is being staged to celebrate the centenary of the authors birth.

The Baalbeck International Festival will be held at Bacchus Temple July 30-Aug. 31. For more information, please visit www.baalbeck.org.lb.