Sydney Festival: This is Our City in Summer 3 Weeks Every January

SYDNEY, Oct. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Festival Director Lieven Bertels and the Sydney Festival team today revealed the full program for Sydney Festival 2013, an explosion of exceptional theatre, dance, music, visual arts, film and more that will bring the harbour city to life from January 5-27.

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Sydneysiders and visitors know Sydney Festival is one of the most wonderful summer festivals in the world – a claim underpinned by the city's lustre and charisma, making it an ideal showcase for the world's great artists.

Over the last five years, Sydney Festival has almost doubled in size, operating on an A$20 million dollar annual budget, and boasting Australia's largest free outdoor program of concerts and events. The Festival attracts audiences of more than half a million people to its free and ticketed events.

In its 37th year, under the leadership of new Festival Director Lieven Bertels, Sydney Festival presents 25 Australian exclusives, 10 world premieres and 3 Australian premieres. The 2013 program presents 92 events and 360 performances in total, with more than 18 events being free.

In 2013, the Festival will open on January 5 with a trilogy of free outdoor spectacles with Day One: An Opening In Three Acts. The day will open with Fun Run, an eccentric comedic marathon, followed by The Arrival of the world's largest and happiest Rubber Duck to Sydney's Darling Harbour. To top off the night, dance and party with 60,000 of your closest friends in Sydney's famous outdoor venue The Domain for the Daptone Super Soul Revue.

Sydney Festival 2013 will welcome works by The Royal Shakespeare Company, world-renowned composer and director Heiner Goebbels, France's Orchestre National De Jazz, the legendary David Byrne in collaboration with St. Vincent, and internationally acclaimed conductor Andre De Ridder in the revisit of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: The Space Odyssey.

One of the most anticipated shows for 2013 is Semele Walk, a radical retelling of Handel's opera Semele by Ludger Engels, featuring catwalk models with attitude and outrageous couture by the queen of punk, Vivienne Westwood.

Sydney Festival 2013 runs January 5-27. The full program can be found on the Festival website.

All this, and so much more, makes our city in summer a wonderful place to be.