Erwartung 1974Edinburgh International Festival
Read more about the opera Erwartung
Having seen Anja Silja in three staged operas at earlier Festivals, it was good to have a further opportunity to encounter her magnetic personality, even in concert form. Schoenberg's short monodrama was still a rare work in Scotland, with several decades to go before Scottish Opera would get round to staging it.
This was also the first time that Bernard Haitink conducted such a piece in Edinburgh. The full programme began with the overture to Mozart's Idomeneo, while after the interval the audience were treated to Mendelssohn's Symphony no3, the 'Scottish'. It certainly isn't easy to detect much logic to the programming, other than to attract people who might otherwise have avoided the centrepiece.
It is possible that this may have been the Scottish premiere. Surely not? However it is certainly good to have Erwartung appearing at the same Festival as the nearly contemporaneous Pierrot Lunaire, which Cleo Laine and the Nash Ensemble played the following week in the Freemasons' Hall.
