Anne Pedersdotter – Norwegian Opera Orchestra

Operatic Witch Trial

Anne Pedersdotter is married to the priest, Absalon Beyer, who is forty years her senior. The priest´s son from his first marriage, Martin, returns home having completed his studies to enter the priesthood. Merete Beyer, Absalon´s eighty-year-old mother, will not accept that her son has married such a young woman. This short synopsis is the framework of Edvard Fliflet Bræin´s opera “Anne Pedersdotter”, a work based on the play of the same title by Hans Wiers-Jensen from 1908. This play has as its basis the most famous witch trial in Norway, namely the burning of Anne Pedersdotter in Bergen in 1590.

Relatively few operas are to be found in Norwegian musical literature when seen in comparison with other musical genres, but among the few that exists two of the most important ones are signed Edvard Fliflet Bræin. “Anne Pedersdotter” is one of these, and on this 2-CD album one can hear the complete opera performed by The Norwegian National Opera Orchestra & Chorus, starring soprano Kjersti Ekeberg, under conductor Per Åke Andersson.