新高级阅读前（双语）53（759）

PASSAGE FIFTY-THREE

The Fringe

1.In 1947 a group of famous people from the art world headed by an Austrian conductor decided to hold an international festival of music, dance and theatre in Edinburgh.

2.The idea was to reunite Europe after the Second World War. It quickly attracted famous names such as Alec Guinness, Richard Burton, Dame Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich as well as the big symphony orchestras.

3.It became a fixed event every August and now attracts 400, 000 people yearly. At the same time, the “Fringe” appeared as a challenge to the official festival.

4.Eight theatre groups turned up uninvited in 1947, in the belief that everyone should have the right to perform, and they did so in a public house disused for years.

5.Soon, groups of students firstly from Edinburgh University, and later from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham were making the journey to the Scottish capital each summer to perform theatre by little-known writers of plays in small church halls to the people of Edinburgh.

6.Today the “Fringe”, once less recognized, has far outgrown the festival with around 1, 500 performances of theatre, music and dance on every one of the 21 days it lasts.

7.And yet as early as 1959, with only 19 theatre groups performing, some said it was getting too big.

8.A paid administrator was first employed only in 1971, and today there are eight administrators working all year round and the number rises to 150 during August itself.

9.In 2004 there were 200 places housing 1, 695 shows by over 600 different groups from 50 different countries. More than 1.25 million tickets were sold.

第五十三篇

艺穗节

1.1947年，在一位奥地利指挥家的带领下，一群艺术界的名人决定在爱丁堡举办一个国际音乐、舞蹈和戏剧节。

2.这个想法是为了在第二次世界大战后重新团结欧洲。它很快吸引了亚历克·吉尼斯、理查德·伯顿、玛戈特·方廷和玛琳·黛德丽等名人以及大型交响乐团。

3.它成为每年8月的固定活动，现在每年吸引40万人。与此同时，“艺穗节”作为官方节日的一个挑战而出现了。

4.1947年，八个剧团不请自来，他们认为每个人都应该有表演的权利，他们在一个废弃多年的酒吧里表演。

5.很快，每年夏天，成群结队的学生，先是来自爱丁堡大学，后来又来自牛津大学、剑桥大学、达勒姆大学和伯明翰大学，来到苏格兰首都爱丁堡，在小教堂大厅里为爱丁堡市民表演不知名剧作家的戏剧。

6.如今，一度不太为人所知的“艺穗节”已经远远超出了音乐节的规模，在它持续的21天里，每一天大约有1500场戏剧、音乐和舞蹈表演。

7.然而，早在1959年，只有19个剧团演出，有人说它变得太大了。

8.只有在1971年才雇佣了付费管理员，而今天全年有8名管理员工作，仅在8月份就增加到150名。

  9.2004年，来自50个不同国家的600多个不同的团体在200个地方举办了1695场演出。超过125万张门票售出。