Songs spanning two centuries opened the Abu Dhabi Festival on Wednesday. Back to a full programme of live performances after three years, the annual music and arts festival returned to Emirates Palace with Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez performing a sweeping set ranging 18th-century works by opera composers Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini, to S American folk songs the one thousand nine hundred forty and one thousand nine hundred fifty.

Florez deservedly received a long, standing ovation the packed auditorium. other promoters would've breathed a sigh of relief for pulling off such a regionally ambitious show, for the Abu Dhabi Festival it's business as usual. For nearly twenty years, the event has blazed its own path, bringing some of the world’s most influential musicians to Abu Dhabi, while displaying what the city offers culturally. Long before the emirate was designated as a City of Music by Unesco, the Abu Dhabi Festival showed its pedigree as an exporter of arts and culture through commissions of innovative works staged in cities including New York, WA DC, Barcelona and Berlin.

The festival's major events in Abu Dhabi, featuring concerts by celebrated US jazz singer Gregory Porter and School Award-winning Chinese-American composer Tan Dun, running until March twenty, are the first leg of an expansive international programme with concerts and opera productions planned for the US and Europe. These events, including a co-production of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman at New York's Metropolitan Opera in May and the Arabic Music Days concert series in Germany in August, arguably planted some of the seeds for Abu Dhabi being named a City of Music, joining the likes of London and Seville.

Founded in two thousand-fourth by parent organisation Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation, the festival is renowned for a music programme blending star names with some of the UAE's best talent. Emirati singer Rashed Al Nuaimi’s impressive duet with Florez on Wednesday is one of many cross-cultural collaborations at the festival. Other successful collaborations in the past comprise jazz pioneer Herbie Hancock with Emirati soul singer Hamdan Al Abri in two thousand-fourteenth, as well US singer Renee Fleming with Emirati soprano Sara Al Qaiwani that same year. Such information exchange extends behind the scenes of the festival. Emirati musicians and students are undertaking masterclasses with festival artists and professional development courses.