The leading Scottish rock band Mogwai, Shakespeare and American plays, and a major opera are to be part of next year's Edinburgh International Festival.
Fergus Linehan, director, has revealed a series of details of next year's festival (EIF) which include several live performances by Mogwai, who will be playing the soundtrack to Mark Cousin's documentary Atomic - Living in Dread and Promise.
In keeping with Mr Linehan's desire to experiment with the breadth of the music in the festival, there will also be a show called Flit, which will feature Martin Green from the band Lau, Adrian Utley from Portishead, Becky Unthank from The Unthanks and White Robot animation.
The festival will also be staging the Salzburg Festival's production of Bellini's Norma, starring leading mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli in the title role, staged by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser.
It will run at the Festival Theatre from August 5 to 9.
Mr Linehan, following the success of the festival's spectacular Harmonium Project opening event this year, said the EIF is planning another free opening event and assessing various sites in the city.
He said it would be ideal if the location could be fixed, but will not necessarily be a large event every year.
The director said: "I think what's really important for us is that we can find a model for it which is sustainable and we create something that is relevant for the season and what is to begin.
"The focus for us needs to be on the quality of the ideas and not just on the scale.
"I think it's important that it stays in the city, and doesn't become 100,000 people in a field with lots of police - we are playing with lots of ideas and locations and we shall see. It will be a large free event."
Mr Linehan, who was revealing acts from his second programme, also said 2017 would be a major celebration as it marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the festival.
That would involve "special projects" which would involve "special funding".
Mr Linehan said that next year's festival would have themes of Shakespeare - to mark his 400th anniversary of his death - and US theatrical writing for the stage, involving seven or eight shows in total.
Mr Linehan also revealed that the final concert would feature noted conductor Donald Runnicles and the BBC SSO performing Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder.
For that performance the Edinburgh Festival Chorus will need 200 singers, and the EIF is to begin a recruitment drive for more singers, especially tenors and basses for the substantial work, which lasts for over an hour and a half.
Mr Linehan said he hoped to change the format of the musical shows he introduced to The Hub venue on the Royal Mile, with possibly a main show every night, with other events around it.
The production of Norma, which sees the opera set in the Second World War, was first staged by the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in May 2013, and was revived this summer.
Public booking for Norma begins on November 21.
The full 2016 programme will be announced next April.
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