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 "This festival says a lot about us, just the fact that we have
world-renowned orchestras who come here to play," said Anca
Badiu, a 42-year-old teacher on a walking tour organized as part
of the festival, named after Romania's most famous composer.
"The Enescu festival equals Romania and music wipes away all of
our problems."
One of Europe's biggest classical music events, it draws bigger
stars and audiences each time, though musicians say its main
concert hall from communist times is an acoustic disaster.
The 24th festival, which kicked off on Aug. 31, features the
London Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Royal
Concertgebouw and the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko.
A host of international artists, including pianists Mitsuko
Uchida and Yuja Wang, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and actress
Marion Cotillard will be performing.
This year's edition of the festival, established in 1958 three
years after the composer's death, comes against a backdrop of
political instability as the Romanian government faces a
potential no-confidence vote after losing its majority.
Festival organizers must fight hard to secure funds and make do
with outdated facilities. Successive governments, which provide
the bulk of the budget through the culture ministry, have failed
to make good on vague promises to replace the main 4,000-seat
Sala Palatului hall, which was built in 1960 for communist party
meetings and has poor acoustics.
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"I wish someday that Bucharest can have a great concert hall, this
must be possible somehow, but we have to wait," said Lawrence
Foster, who conducted the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
to great acclaim.
"Still, it's a great honor to be asked here, it's an incredible
festival."
This year's edition is the largest, conductor and the festival's
artistic director Vladimir Jurowski said, with concerts in the
capital Bucharest and across the country, as well as in six other
countries, including Italy and Germany.
Classical music will play in bookstores and petrol stations, while
children's choirs will sing in corporate offices and parks. Fans can
tour the old city haunts of Enescu.
"It is a way for the public to understand the festival is not only
for the Sala Palatului or concert halls," said Anita Sterea,
organizer of the walking tour. "The festival is everywhere and we
can all enjoy it."
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Ros Russell)
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