Edinburgh International Festival reveals 2025 programme

The Edinburgh International Festival has announced its 2025 programme, showcasing opera, music, theatre, and dance from 1 to 24 August.

This year’s theme is “The Truth We Seek”, following last year’s “Rituals That Unite Us”. It’ll feature 133 performances, seven of which are world premieres, eight are UK and Scottish premieres, and two are European premieres.

Theatre highlights include the previously announced Make It Happen, a new play from James Graham, starring Brian Cox and the newly revealed Sandy Grierson, as well as Orpheus and Eurydice, an opera that incorporates circus performance, and Mary, Queen of Scots, a dance piece nodding to haute couture and punk.

Nederlands Dans Theater’s Figures in Extinction will receive its Scottish premiere, while Cliff Cardinal’s take on Shakespeare in As You Like It: A Radical Retelling will explore truth via the climate emergency, colonialism and politics. Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman will present nonverbal work Works and Days, a collection of political plays, Cutting the Tightrope, will receive its Scottish debut, and Handspring Puppet Company and William Kentridge will remount Faustus in Africa!.

Opera enthusiasts can also enjoy productions from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the NCPA Orchestra. To mark the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death, Aurora Orchestra will make its International Festival debut with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. There’ll also be the UK premiere of Book of Mountains and Seas, composed by Huang Ruo and directed and designed by Basil Twist (My Neighbour Totoro).

For the first time, a dementia-friendly concert from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, in association with Alzheimer Scotland, will be held alongside a total of 33 accessible performances across the programme.

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