Symphony no9 'Choral' 1983Edinburgh International Festival
Read more about the opera Symphony no9 'Choral'
1983 was the final Festival under the direction of John Drummond. Its theme was Vienna 1900, and it was widely agreed to be the most successfully integrated programme for many years, with exhibitions, drama, music, dance and opera all linked to built powerfully to give an effective illustration of the international artistic powerhouse that was Vienna at the beginning of the 20th Century.
While the blockbuster work in the opening Usher Hall concert, Beethoven's mould-breaking Ninth Symphony, can hardly be said to fit into that pattern, the concert actually opened with an early masterwork of Alban Berg, his Three Orchestral Pieces, of 1915. The team of soloists joining Andrew Davis was just about as good as could be found.
The opera programme included a further visit by the Hamburg State Opera, bringing a double bill of operas by Zemlinsky based on Oscar Wilde. They also played Die Zauberflöte. Scottish Opera celebrated the tenth anniversary of its first Edinburgh staging by producing Britten's last opera, Death in Venice, based on a novella by Thomas Mann. The Opera Theatre of St Louis, in its first visit, brought a recent American work, The Postman Always Rings Twice and a British rarity, Fennimore and Gerda by Delius. The Usher Hall concert schedule included Claudio Abbado conducting the second act of Lohengrin and Schoenberg's Erwartung.
Other major vocal and choral events included Klaus Tennstedt conducting Das Lied von der Erde; Alexander Gibson conducting Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducting Bruckner's Mass in F minor.
