Al-Bustan Festival (The International Festival of Music and the Performing Arts), which started in Beirut on Feb. 16, is honoring William Shakespeare with the theme "Midwinter Night's Dream."
Lebanon's pioneering classical music festival, which will run until Mar. 20, has selected a program packed with Shakespearean-themed concerts and performances for its 23rd edition.
The festival aims to explore Shakespeare's influence on music and the performing arts, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the iconic English writer's death.
The festival held its first themed event on Feb. 18, a concert titled "Midsummer's Night Dream," in which German composer Felix Mendelssohn's composition for Shakespeare's famous play was performed.
On Feb. 19, a lecture titled "Shakespeare and Music" was given at the American University in Beirut by Professor Julie Sanders, an internationally renowned English Literature and Drama specialist.
The lecture focused on the legacy Shakespeare left behind in different forms of music and performing arts such as jazz, opera, film score, ballet and classical symphony.
There are more than six themed events still ahead, these include an evening dedicated to "Romeo and Juliet" on Feb. 25.
This will include performances of Charles Gounod’s opera, Hector Berlioz’s dramatic symphony and Sergei Prokofiev's ballet, all named after and based on the iconic Shakespearean work.
Feb. 29's evening will bring together world-renowned Japanese medieval Noh theater master Naohiko Umewaka and international French concert pianist Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua.
In "Do you Noh Shakespeare?: King Lear dreaming," the two performers will present a unique theatrical interpretation of Shakespeare's character King Lear.
Then on March 13, the festival will hold an event titled "Shakespeare in Arabic" which will combine musical performances with acting performances of iconic scenes from several of Shakespeare's plays such as "Richard III," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet."
Al-Bustan Festival, which was originally established to revive cultural life in Lebanon, is one of the most prominent cultural festivals in the Arab World.
Since the festival was founded in 1994, it has established in the country a "unique and unprecedented tradition of a music season in winter," according to the festival's official website .
The festival, which is dominated by chamber music, presents more than 30 performances each year including orchestral concerts, opera, choral concerts, theater, marionettes and dance.