Copenhagen's 114-year-old, exquisite Royal Theater is alive with music, drama, and dance from the first of September until the last of May each year. In addition, the modern, comfortable, acoustically flawless concert hall in Tivoli Gardens opens every May and presents world-class musicians. The Danes are modest and somewhat self deprecating: "We are a small country and our opera house works on a small budget, " Poul Jorgensen, the director of the Royal Opera, says. "This is a national theater--most of our works are performed in Danish. We try to keep our singers happy and do without guest artists. Perhaps we are provincial." But opera performances at the Royal Theater turn out to be anything but provincial.
Last year, highlights of the season included Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, a special concert performance of Richard Wagner's Die Walkure, and a stunning production of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.
Splendid Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is perhaps Strauss' most popular opera. In it, the Marshallin is having an affair with the young Count Octavian. When the Marschallin's boorish cousin, Baron Ochs, arrives to inform her of his engagement to the young Sophie, Octavian disguises himself as one of the Marschallin's maids to escape discovery, only to find himself ogled by the lascivious Ochs. The Marschallin agrees to find a cavalier to take the traditional silver rose to Ochs' intended bride and entrusts the task to Octavian. He and Sophie fall in love, and he hatches a plan to foil the baron. Disguised as the maid, Octavian agrees to a romantic rendezvous with Ochs at a tavern. By arrangement, Sophie, her father Von Faninal, and the Marschallin all arrive at the tavern, and the scandalized Ochs withdraws. The Marschallin gives her blessing to Octavian and Sophie.
At the Royal Theater, Der Rosenkavalier was presented in the original German with an all-Danish cast (and a Finnish conductor). The Marshchallin's bedroom was covered in tapestries depicting woodsy autumn scenes--the perfect metaphor for her giving up Octavian to a younger woman. The second act, in Faninal's reception room, featured a gilt staircase, wrought iron gates, and a bird-and-tree motif imprinted on the walls--once again a metaphor for the lovely Sophie, trapped like a caged bird into an engagement to the vulgar Baron Ochs. The third act had the perfect booby-trapped inn, with plenty of false walls and escape routes. The costumes were splendid period pieces, worthy of the character's stations in life.
The role of the Marschallin was taken by thirty-year-old Tina Kiberg, a beautiful, elegant woman with a voice and demeanor to match. Though a bit younger than most sopranos who take this role, Kiberg's Marschallin was authoritative and sensitive and had the irony necessary to make the opera work. She was visibly upset by Ochs' behavior but still kept her dignity. Her part in the third act trio was gorgeously handled--Kiberg is a singer to watch. Her Octavian was mezzo-soprano Edith Guillaume (also a Dane, despite her name), who fit into the trouser role comfortably and sang with passion, if not quite the mot ingratiating sound. Octavian is a complicated role--a woman playing a man imitating a woman part of the time--and Guillaume was always convincing. Tove Hyldgaard sang Sophie with a fast vibrato and clean, pure tone, and director Hans Neugebauer turned this sometimes wishy-washy character into a truly
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