Baalbek International Festival to be Held Exceptionally in Jdeideh

The famed Baalbek International Festival, normally held in the town's spectacular Roman ruins, will be held this year in the Northern Metn district of Jdeideh near the capital Beirut, the festival's organizing committee said on Monday.

La Magnanerie, a former silk factory that dates back to the nineteenth century, will be this year's venue, the committee announced in a statement.

“Ever since 1956, the year the Baalbek International Festival was launched under the auspices of president Camille Chamoun, the mission of our festival has been to host top notch artists, promote Lebanon's cultural resolve and organize concerts at a unique location in the world – the Baalbek temple,” it said.

“Circumstances have forced us to cope with the difficulties that the region is going through, and this is what happened in 2006, when we organized Fairouz's concert in December,” the committee added.

The festival was canceled during the July-August 2006 devastating war between Israel and Hizbullah.

The committee also cited the fact that American soprano Renee Fleming, the festival's headline act, and Lebanese renowned singer Assi al-Hellani have canceled their participation in this year's festival.

“Given the development of the general situations and after consulting with the relevant authorities, we have decide to carry on with our festival through organizing the other concerts exceptionally at a new venue,” it said.

Artists Marianne Faithfull, Eliane Elias, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Fadia Tumb al-Hajj and Marcel Khalife “will come with us to Beirut to highlight the Baalbek festival's vital cultural message,” the statement added.

The committee noted that the dates of the concerts remain unchanged.

The festival is one of the Arab world's leading cultural events and a point of pride for Lebanon.

"As as result of the security situation, we cannot organize the festival in the temple this year," the festival's press office said on June 21.

The disruption to the festival comes as Lebanon finds itself increasingly affected by the war raging in its larger neighbor Syria.

Rockets fired from inside Syria have hit border areas near the Baalbek ruins, which lie in a stronghold of Hizbullah.

Hizbullah is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has dispatched fighters to battle alongside the Syrian army against rebels seeking to overthrow him. The group claims its military involvement in Syria is necessary to protect border towns and to prevent the fall of Syria into the hands of Islamist extremists, Israel and the U.S.

Hizbullah's intervention has raised tensions in Lebanon, where many Sunnis back the Sunni-led uprising against Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The Baalbek ruins, which include the striking Temple of Jupiter and well-preserved Temple of Bacchus, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Launched in 1956 during what is often thought of as Lebanon's Golden Age, the Baalbek festival was halted at the start of the 1975-1990 civil war and did not resume until 1997.

It has hosted figures including dancer Rudolph Nureyev, British singer Sting and American jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald.

Lebanon's other main summer festivals, including the Beiteddine festival in the Chouf mountains and the Byblos festival on the Mediterranean coast, are expected to go ahead as planned.