SYDNEY While Europeans and North Americans trudge to work in the cold and dark, Sydneysiders are partying as the city celebrates its sub-tropical summer with two major festivals. The long evenings, warm weather and a harbor-side backdrop make a near perfect setting for the city's outdoor events over January and February through the Sydney Festival. It is kind of like a party from just before Christmas to the end of February, said Leo Schofield, director of the Sydney Festival. There is this feeling of ease about the city during the month of January, which I guess parallels August in France or Italy, Schofield told Reuters. The Sydney Festival, with a A$10.5 million (U.S.$6.6 million) budget, kicked off the 1998 season earlier last month with a concert by the Russian National Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, which has been floodlit blue for the 23-day event.

A Place to Dance, Sing and Watch The festival also gives Sydneysiders the chance to strut to Joaquin Cortes's Flamenco dance performances from Spain, to Dance Salsa to music by local Cubans or to foot-stomp to the gospel by McCollough Sons of Thunder from Harlem, New York. They can listen to the soothing tones of world music Diva Oumou Sangare or American Jazz singer Al Jarreau, and hear Hey Jude and other Beatles classics played by an Orchestra conducted by former Beatles producer Sir George Martin. Theater-goers can visit the world's smallest circus in Le Cercle Invisible from France, see an ideal husband, Oscar Wilde's last play before his arrest in January 1895, or watch a replica of the Titanic sink outside the Sydney Opera House, all for free.

For the really serious festival-goer, there was a seven-hour production about village life in the west of Ireland, the Leenane Trilogy, by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh or the five-hour Cloudstreet, an adaptation of the novel by Australian writer Tim Winton. The top international acts and the cream of Australian artists make the event a far cry from the original Sydney Festival launched by the city's retailers 21 years ago, which featured a street parade with floats.

Business Starts the Party The festival was cooked up by a bunch of retailers who wanted to attract people to the city in January, hoping to kick off the sales, Schofield said. The city's shops still benefit from the festival, although they no longer have much to do with the organization of the event, said Peter Cochrane, arts editor at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

The Sydney Festival, while it does not make a profit, generates a lot of business for the city, with tourists visiting Sydney, Cochrane told Reuters. Festivals are a growth industry in Australia. All of Australia's five major cities now have major arts festivals after Brisbane launched its first festival in 1996 to join the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth festivals. Sydney still plays second fiddle to the Adelaide festival, viewed as Australia's premier arts event.

Cochrane says that is because Sydney Australia's largest city with around four million people against Adelaide's one million is too big for its festivals to take over the whole town. Some of the better festivals are in smaller places like Edinburgh and Avignon, Cochrane said. That has not stopped Schofield, who is directing his first Sydney Festival after directing three in Melbourne, from aspiring to make the event larger and better known.

Already it is a desire for a lot of artists to play at the Sydney Opera House, so we would like the festival to have a similar image, said Schofield, who is also a newspaper columnist and former food critic. (Reuters)