The Manchester International Festival, which takes place July 2–19, in England's Second City, is like Paris Fashion Week, where a week isn't a week unless it's ten days. After all, there a lot of premieres to pack into those two weeks, and they're headliners: Rufus Wainright, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Damon Albarn, Zaha Hadid, Steve Reich, and Marina Abramovic. It's even got the reclusive Hans Ulrich Obrist, who will host a symposium, this one on Abramovic. (LEFT: LOU REED AND MARTHA WAINWRIGHT. PHOTO: ZEV GREENFIELD)

Festival organizers are already getting ready for the second installment of its cultural biennial: Monday the coffered ballroom of the W Hotel in Union Square (had you dared enter before?) hosted a preview of its programming. Naturally, Rufus Wainwright took center-makeshift stage to tell VIPs and press gathered why Peter Gelb, Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, aborted plans to host the premiere of Wainwright's debut opera. Gelb insisted on an English libretto; Wainwright, a native of Montréal, declared "Prima Donna" must be in French. It will premiere, a la Francaise, in Manchester. A sedate, black leather-clad Reed applauded the determined singer songwriter. Although Reed looked comfortable in the hotel's ballroom, a temple to late-1990s luxury, I wondered what he thought of the deep-fried cubes of macaroni and cheese! Alex Poots, the Festival's director, concluded with a reminder that even if one does not know where Manchester is in the world, there are direct flights available from New York. Noted.