Lincoln Center Festival Runs 7/7 Thru 7/26, Offers 56 Artist Performances

Two top theater companies - France's Le Theatre du Soleil and Hungary's Katona Jozsef Theatre - share opening night honors at Lincoln Center Festival 09, which runs from July 7 through July 26, 2009 and offers 56 performances by artists and ensembles from 14 countries. The three-week Lincoln Center Festival 09--boasting 14 North American, U.S., and New York premieres and debuts-will unfold at six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus, and Park Avenue Armory, where the Festival returns for a second summer.

World-renowned European theater companies from France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, and Italy will be a special focus of this year's Festival:

Opening the Festival on July 7 will be Le Theatre du Soleil's Les Ephemeres, a U.S. premiere directed by theater visionary Ariane Mnouchkine. This intimate, elegiac work, written collectively by the company, illuminates the ephemeral quality of human existence in all its fragility and immediacy. The company's first Festival appearance since Le Dernier Caravansérail in 2005 will take place in Park Avenue Armory's vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall, a grand performance space unrestricted by the limitations of traditional theaters.

Concurrently on opening night, July 7, from Hungary, the Katona Jozsef Theatre makes its Festival bow with the New York premiere of Tamás Ascher's much-acclaimed staging of Chekhov's Ivanov at the Gerald Lynch Theater at John Jay College.

Poland's Narodowy Stary Teatr's Festival debut appearance is Krystian Lupa's staged production of Thomas Bernhard's brutal, surrealist novel, Kalkwerk (The Lime Works). Performances begin July 14 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

Bela Pinter and Company, one of the most innovative independent theater companies in Hungary, makes its U.S. debut on July 21 with the absurdist Peasant Opera, a U.S. premiere, at the Clark Studio Theater.

Returning to the Festival will be director Lev Dodin and the St. Petersburg-based Maly Drama Theatre with their North American premiere adaptation of Vasily Grossman's powerful epic novel, Life and Fate. Performances begin July 21 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College.

Some of Russia's leading actors make a rare New York appearance when the Chekhov InterNational Theatre Festival makes its Festival debut on July 22 with the New York premiere of its production of Pushkin's 1825 play, Boris Godunov, directed by one of today's most innovative directors, Declan Donnellan, in Park Avenue Armory's Wade Thompson Hall. Boris Godunov will be presented in association with Park Avenue Armory.

One of the oldest theaters in Europe, Piccolo Teatro di Milano, last performed at the Festival in 2005 with Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters, at Alice Tully Hall. The company returns on July 22, this time to the Rose Theater, with the New York premiere of Goldoni's celebrated comedy Trilogia della villeggiatura, in a co-production with Teatri Uniti, directed by its star, noted film actor Toni Servillo.

Two dance companies return to the festival with new works:

Shen Wei Dance Arts dances Re - (I, II, III), the first New York performances of the complete dance triptych (Re - III is a Lincoln Center 50th Anniversary commission), with performances at the newly-revitalized Alice Tully Hall, July 9, 10, and 11.

On July 14, Emanuel Gat Dance offers two works that are also special commissions for Lincoln Center's 50th Anniversary: the North American premiere of Israeli-born choreographer Emanuel Gat's Silent Ballet, danced by the full company, and the New York premiere Winter Variation, a duet for Gat and Roy Assaf at the Rose Theater, with two additional performances, July 16 and 17.

The eclectic music events of Festival 09 range widely, from Africa to Louisiana, from Europe to New York:

A Night in the Maghreb on July 18 will offer two of that region of North Africa's most acclaimed musical ambassadors-Algerian music icon Idir in his U.S. debut and charismatic, pioneering female Moroccan vocalist Najat Aatabou in her North American debut-on a double bill at Avery Fisher Hall.

A Tribute to Wardell Quezergue is a salute to one of the Crescent City's greatest songwriters, with a line-up of iconic blues, soul, and jazz artists including: Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), The Dixie Cups, Jean Knight, Robert Parker, Zigaboo Modeliste, Dorothy Moore, Tammy Lynn, Tony Owens, Michael Hurtt and Wardell Quezergue with Wardell Quezergue's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra-who will perform Quezergue's original material and arrangements at Alice Tully Hall, July 19.

Another double bill-on July 21 at Alice Tully Hall-Afro-Blues for the 21st Century, features musical artists Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara, and Issa Bagayogo who play a unique style or world fusion that has roots in American blues, retro-rock and contemporary.

Pianists Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa will perform a concert of four-hand and two-piano works, Two by Four with the Ruhr, which will include a North American premiere by Philip Glass and a New York premiere by Chen Yi, at Alice Tully Hall on July 25.

Tickets for Lincoln Center Festival 09 are on sale via CenterCharge 212-721-6500, online at www.LincolnCenterFestival.org, and at the Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall Box Offices, 65th Street and Broadway. For more information, visit www.LincolnCenterFestival.org. Register for "My Lincoln Center" to receive a Festival brochure, updates, and special offers.