Salzburg announces a Mahler-Schoenberg opera. Sort of.

The festival published next summer’s plans this morning. The eye-catcher is an attempt by Peter Sellars to combine Schoenberg’s monodrama Erwartung with the finale of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, both written in 1909.

Sellars is calling it ‘One morning turns into an eternity’. Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct.

Here’s the official version:

Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, both iconic figures of early 20th-century music, were bound by a mutual sense of admiration and respect. They built a bridge between romanticism and modernism thanks to their respective transformative visions. Performing their works in the same evening brings these two major artistic perspectives into dialogue with one another and invites us to listen to complementary answers to existential or intimate questions. In 1909, Arnold Schoenberg wrote the monodrama Erwartung for soprano and orchestra. Composed around the same time as Erwartung, “Der Abschied” (The Farewell) closes Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), one of Gustav Mahler’s most introspective and moving works. Peter Sellars, who most recently staged La clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo and The Gambler in Salzburg, directs. At the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen is a partner of equal genius – together, they staged Olivier Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise in 1992. Ausrine Stundyte and Wiebke Lehmkuhl take on the vocal parts. The premiere takes place at the Felsenreitschule von 27 July, followed by four further performances through 18 August.

photo: Mahler portrait, inscribed to Schoenberg

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