THE VERBIER FESTIVAL: WHERE EGOS DAREN'T

High culture, high summer and high altitude create a rousing major chord when Verbier hosts the only classical-music festival you can reach by cable car. Since 1994, stellar musicians have been dropping their fees to wallow in this collegiate atmosphere. Maestros conduct the resident youth orchestra. World-class soloists volunteer for scratch chamber groups. Egos are left at the bottom of the mountain.

How does Martin Engstroem, the festival’s Swedish founder, pull it off? The answer lies partly in the music of the setting. Streams descant and trill along gutters between chalets; pastures clang with cow bells; the view across the valley is an alpine symphony.

Last year the pop singer Rufus Wainwright dipped his toe in Mozart. This year, as well as the pianists Lang Lang and Martha Argerich and the violinists Joshua Bell and Vadim Repin, Verbier’s siren song has lured a mind-boggling cast to its “Don Giovanni”. To get Bryn Terfel, Edita Gruberova, Rene Pape, Susan Graham and Thomas Quasthoff on one stage, an opera house would have to blow its annual subsidy. The main stage is a 1,600-capacity tent near the Au Vieux Verbier tavern; the one hazard, rain. “We’ve never cancelled a concert,” Engstroem says. “But here you never know what’s going to happen.” That’s the beauty of it.

Verbier festival July 17th to August 2nd

~ JASPER REES

Picture Credit: AP