Lincoln Center Festival 2003 brings the cutting edge in the performing arts from Korea, China, Israel, Russia, England, Germany, Brazil, and the United States to Lincoln Center, from July 8-27. The eighth season of the Festival will include 20 premieres and debuts in 100 performances of opera, dance, theater, performance art, and ritual in venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus.

In the second year of its special co-presentation with The Metropolitan Opera, the Festival brings the famed Kirov Opera from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg to the Met for 20 performances of Russian classics Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Prokofiev's The Demon and Semyon Kotko, Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, and the Verdi classic, Macbeth.

Dance features the New York debut of Shen Wei Dance Arts, the celebrated Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Israel's Batsheva Dance Company.

Other Festival highlights include performances of Pansori, a traditional drama/music narrative of Korea sung by five revered master storytellers; two versions of the same 13th century Yuan Chinese drama, The Orphan of Zhao staged by Chen Shi-Zheng - one, in English with an American cast, the other, in Mandarin, performed by a Chinese cast, but with a modern twist; and a mini-festival of Brazilian music from the Bahia region featuring Brazilian legend Carlinhos Brown.