At the Lighthouse

As confessed to in my calendary literature post, June makes me sentimental and patriotic to the point where I will ride my bicycle around, singing patriotic hymns like some distasteful ad for a ghastly nationalistic, xenophobic political party. June is also the only month of the year where I think seriously about taking up family history research.

In short, I resort to Romanticism. And there’s an opera that’s perfect for that particular mode, namely Romantic Danish composer Peter Heise’s historical, dramatic opera King and Marshall (“Drot og Marsk”), which is usually to be found on my mp3 player well through June.

The Regicide at Finderup Barn by artist Otto Bache (1882)

This opera really kind of has it all when it comes to midsummer sentimentalism. It’s based on an medieval Danish legend (which, in turn, is loosely based on historical facts) so there’s the whole patriotic nostalgia, it’s got some truly gut-wrenchingly beautiful music paired with some high-strung lyrics, so there’s plenty to get sentimental about, and there’s lots of high drama, too.

The story of the opera is this: King Erik of Denmark (1259-1286) is a bit of a libertine who isn’t above seducing his valet Rane’s innocent sweetheart, charcoal burneress Aase. His childhood friend and Marshall Stig Andersen, however, trusts him with his life and leaves his beautiful wife Ingeborg in the King’s protection as he’s about to go off to fight a battle. Scarcely has Stig left for battle before Erik falls in love with his friend’s wife, and he seduces her, too, by pulling a kind of amputated version of King-David-and-Bathseba on Stig’s ass; telling Ingeborg that Stig has died in combat and asking her to be his mistress. Ingeborg conquers, no doubt at least somewhat enamoured by his charming majesty, but is appalled when her beloved husband returns, very much alive. She confesses her crime to Stig, blaming the deceitful Erik and a heart-broken Stig takes off to the King’s court immediately. The King and the nobility await him here, ready to celebrate the marshall’s victorious battle, but Stig ends the party abruptly by saying in front of everyone that gee, the King might have found a better way to pay him back for his loyalty than by raping his own frickin’ wife dammit!! The King hems and haws at this, without much to say for himself, and the marshall succeeds in winning the sympathy of quite a large following. They meet up in private and it turns out that Stig’s not the only person who feels violated by the King’s autocratic power. The conspiracy against the King plot to kill him.

Meanwhile, Erik is filled with dread after the ugly scene between himself and his old trusted friend. He ominously recalls having set fire to a moor once, the fire quickly consuming all living things on it before his eyes. Rane, who is part of the conspiracy, convinces the King to go hunting, and the desperate and confused King happens upon Aase, who was crushed when the King ruthlessly discarted her upon meeting Ingeborg and fled out into the woods to live there again. In his desperation to escape from his gloomy thoughts, the King tries to seduce Aase once again, not recognizing his old flame. Aase flees, but she is very much of a Gilda to Erik’s Duca, and she warns him against a crowd of men disguised as monks – the conspiracy in disguise. The King leaves with Rane, and Aase realizes to her horror that he has left his sword by her, and she dutifully rushes after him to bring it to him.

Rane leads the King to the town of Finderup and into a barn where he encourages the King to take shelter for the night. Erik is plagued by nightmares of a meeting with a vengeful Ingeborg, and is terrified as he hears the noise of the conspiring men outside the barn. He pleads Arne vainly to defend him, to no avail. The monk-clad conspiracy enter, and Stig corners Erik and stabs him to death, amid maledictions from the dying King. The conspiracy sets the barn on fire and flees, and soon people are summoned to the King’s dubious mausoleum, among them the merciful Aase with his sword who was too late to save her love. People sing a requiem for the dead king, and Aase says a prayer for “every wayfaring soul”.

Composer Peter Heise

As you can see, the opera lacks nothing in terms of pathos, and as already said, the libretto suffers a great deal from a rather clichéd writing. In his excellent recent opera guide, Peter Dürrfeld calls it “hollow and limping”, which I think isn’t far off, at least in some places. ”Fair lily, bid my will!” sings King Erik cheesily to beautiful child of nature Aase, and sometimes it gets downright comical, as in this piece of dialogue in a duet between Stig and Ingeborg that always made me giggle like a dirty-minded 12-year-old: Stig: “Will not the king raise his victorious marshall?” Ingeborg: “Alas! He has raised plenty!” Hee.

But even so it’s a great opera. The libretto isn’t all cheese, and Erik’s angsty aria in the third act with the efficient and foreshadowing imagery of the burning moor is genuinely powerful. And the opera has a lot going for it, as regards storyline: there’s sex, lies, and politics, all in one opera, and it’s hard not to get sucked into a story like that. The gallery of characters is also nice and juicy with four really interesting main characters: The libertine king who’s not actually evil, but who hurts people through his endless hunt for pleasure, the dubiously moral Ingeborg who, rather like a Donna Anna, in one breath accuses Erik of both seduction and rape, the righteously indignated and faithfully loving Stig with the delicious streak of a murderous streak, and nature-child Aase with her good, forgiving heart who seems to embody the Danish landscape and nature and who gets the last word with her prayer of forgiveness and protection.

And then of course there is the music. Which was what I really wanted to talk about. The music is absolutely sublime and it is the music that lifts up the characters from the sticky soil of the limping lyrics. I regret that I am unable to share the music with you, but I very much recommend it: There is at least one version on the market, released from record company Danacord. The score illustrates beautifully the overall feel of the opera; the majestic solemnity of a fixed, hierarchic universe and the grousing feel of a grass-root, rebellious movement that threats it. There is no better example of this than the court dance of act I. Heise has obviously taken care to create a courtly medieval atmosphere with this piece, whose time and tonality lend brilliantly from the Danish folk ballad tradition. But instead of dwelling on these tendencies and make the music into a pretty little period piece, Heise makes sure to create a sense of drama within the frames of the medieval-harking royal dance: The forte and piano of the piece changes constantly and unpredictably, ensuing in the listener a sense of danger and empending conflict, rather than simply imitating the safe, steady procession of a courtly dance.

And to round things up nicely; this courtly dance is actually mentioned in the libretto as a St. John’s Eve’s dance! So it really does have it all when it comes to midsummer sentimentality. And like Midsummer it’s rich on both sentimental beauty, and the solstice menacing feel of being headed towards darker times. I recommend King and Marshall warmly for June sentimentality.

/marie