The Daegu International Musical Festival (DIMF), marking its 20th anniversary this year, unveiled its largest lineup ever. ▶Page 19
On the 28th, DIMF held a press briefing at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. The festival runs for 18 days, from June 19 through July 6. It will present 35 works from seven countries — including Hungary, the United States, China, Japan and the Netherlands — with 122 performances across Daegu. The festival's official invited lineup features 14 major domestic and international productions, and its flagship creative support program has expanded to six projects. This year, DIMF selected joint opening and closing productions.
The joint opening production, "Turandot," is DIMF’s flagship original musical adapted from the opera of the same name. Returning after seven years, this staging pairs a Hungarian director — who previously directed the Slovak version — with a Korean creative team to deliver a thoroughly modern take on the work. The festival also named the suspense spy thriller "Harbin in the Dark," set in early-20th-century Harbin where Chinese, Western and Russian cultures intersected, as a joint opener. For the joint closing, audiences will see the U.S. production "Into the Woods" and China’s "Bo-ok."
Other international titles include Japan’s Shiki Theatre Company’s "Ghost & Lady," France’s "Les Virtuoses," and the U.K.’s "Barbershop Opera." To mark its 20th anniversary, DIMF will also remount previously invited "You & It" and the Dutch piece "Slapstick - Scherzo" as reminder performances.
This year’s DIMF creative support program, which cultivates next-generation original musicals, will stage six works during the festival: "Again, Romeo and Juliet"; "Tak Young-geum"; "Baudelaire"; "Seongju_House: The God Who Lost Its Home — Drifting in Seoul"; "Shururuka"; and "Hee-jae" (a supported revival).
Bae Sung-hyuk, chair of DIMF’s executive committee, said, "We selected all 35 works with the idea that any of them could serve as an opening or closing production."
