Lovers of classical music, theater, dance and opera again will again be head to Edinburgh, Scotland, for the city's annual International Festival, which kicks off Sunday.

It's a busy time for the arts in Edinburgh, where the 11-day Jazz and Blues Festival winds up Tuesday (Aug. 8) and makes way for the Book Festival, the Television Festival and the always innovative Fringe Festival. But the International Festival is the most prestigious of the events.

Highlights of this year's Edinburgh International Festival schedule include the only UK appearance of the Cleveland Orchestra, the return of the New York City Ballet to Great Britain after an 11-year absence and the culmination of the Boulez 2000 worldwide festivities as conductor/composer Pierre Boulez joins the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance.

"The Edinburgh International Festival survives and renews itself each year because we invest in the world-class quality and range of our program, and because our prices are low enough to attract a wide audience who attend a number of different events and want to try out new experiences," festival director Brian McMaster said in a statement.

The Cleveland Orchestra is featured on opening night performing Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust." A collection of soloists including bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, tenor Vinson Cole (replacing the previously scheduled Giuseppe Sabbatini) and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore will be joined by the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the RSNO Junior Chorus.

Another long-absent returnee to the International Festival is the Stuttgart State Opera, which last played the gathering 34 years ago. It will bring its production of Handel's Alcina for the occasion.

Opera To Premiere 'Ring Cycle'

Other operatic highlights include the launch of the financially troubled Scottish Opera's "Ring Cycle" with Wagner's Das Rheingold directed by Tim Albery. The cycle has never been performed in its entirety at the festival and will be completed in 2003.

"It's true that Scottish Opera is not yet a stable organization," McMaster told the London Times. "But 'The Ring' is the right thing to do. Every nation needs one. Scottish Opera's 'Ring' could be the saving of the company."

"We are ready musically and in every other way," Scottish Opera music director Richard Armstrong told the Scotsman. "The casting is right and in Tim Albery we have a director whom I greatly respect and like."

Complementing Das Rheingold are concert performances of two rarely performed operas by French composers influenced by Wagner — Chausson's Le Roi Arthus (his only stage work) and Fauré's Pénélope.

Mozart lovers are in for a treat as pianist Christian Zacharias presents the complete cycle of Mozart's piano concertos performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra over a series of evenings.

Beyond A Century Of Music

Boulez 2000, conceived by Boulez and the London Symphony Orchestra in celebration of his 75th birthday, culminates its 11-city tour at Edinburgh with four concerts performed on consecutive nights. The pieces were handpicked by Boulez and look at the evolution of orchestral music through the 20th century and into the next.

Speaking about the program, LSO managing director Clive Gillinson said in a statement, "It needed to be something that would try to ask questions about where music is going, and this is the series [Boulez has] come up with. It very much explores not only the roots of the 21st century's music, but asks some questions about where we go from here."

In addition to the New York City Ballet, the Nederland Dance Theater will join forces with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras to perform a program which includes Jiri Kylián's choreography set to Janácek's "Sinfonietta."

"First Charlie [Mackerras] said 'I'm not going down the bloody pit again to conduct a ballet' — though of course he used to be a great ballet conductor," McMaster said. "Now Kylián is getting in a terrible panic, because there is limited rehearsal time to bring the ensembles together. Nevertheless, this is a real festival project, something that could not happen in any other circumstances."

Several nights of musical intoxication are promised with "Work, Sex and Drink: Scots and Their Songs," which will explore the canon of Scottish song from its ancient roots to today using the unique song collection compiled in the 18th century by Robert Burns and James Johnson. The series of nine concerts covers songs devoted to the Jacobite risings, fairy lore and the supernatural, love songs, work songs, sex and drinking songs and many more subjects from everyday life. Many of Scotland's leading performers join together for these late-night concerts held at the Hub, Edinburgh's Festival Center.

"The Edinburgh Festival can do things that can't be done anywhere else, and therefore we have a responsibility to do them," McMaster added.

The Edinburgh International Festival runs through Sept. 2.