Í Óðamansgarði

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Opera dates
Title: In the madman's garden
Original title: Í Óðamansgarði
Shape: Chamber opera in three acts
Original language: Faroese
Music: Sunleif Rasmussen
Libretto : Danial Hoydal
Literary source: William Heinesen : The gale mands have
Premiere: October 12, 2006
Place of premiere: House of the North , Tórshavn
Place and time of the action: timeless, not a specific place
people
  • Marselius, boy from 11 (at the beginning) to 17 years old (at the end), a dreamer (actor)
  • Stella Kristina, girl from 12 to 18 years, both pretty and ugly, at the same time insecure and a femme fatale (actress)
  • Jordanson the Mad man ( bass / actor)
  • Mann, Marselius' abstract alter ego ( tenor )
  • Woman, Stella Kristina's abstract alter ego ( soprano )

Í Óðamansgarði [ ʊi ˈɔuwamansgɛaɹɪ ] ( Faroese : "In the garden of the madman") is a chamber opera in three acts by Sunleif Rasmussen with a libretto by Dánial Hoydal based on a short story by William Heinesen (1960). It is the first opera in the Faroese language. The world premiere was on October 12, 2006 in the House of the North , Tórshavn .

action

The scenario takes place in the Faroe Islands and is based on a story by William Heinesen, which was published in 1960 in Danish under the title Den gale mands have . The story tells of a boy and a girl - Marselius and Stella Kristina - who meet in the garden of a "madman" named Jordanson. He is mostly inactive as a character, but everything revolves around him: is he crazy? What's his story? Does he have supernatural powers? Does it even exist? As the couple tries to get to the bottom of these questions, they get closer and define themselves.

layout

Í Óðamansgarði is a chamber opera for 15 musicians, two actors, three singers and two dancers. The actors do not sing, but this task is taken over by the soprano and tenor, who thus represent the alter ego of the two. The singers have no arias, they only sing single words or sentences. In the first production by the dramaturge Eyðun Johannessen , none of the three singers were Faroese , but came from Åland , Iceland and Denmark . Yet they sang in Faroese.

history

The opera was commissioned in 2001 by the Faroese chamber ensemble Aldubáran under the direction of the Icelandic conductor Bernharður Wilkinson and was a co-production of the House of the North with the National Theater of the Faroe Islands . This production has a special place in the history of the Faroe Islands . Never before has an opera been written for the island people by almost 50,000 people.

The opera was first performed in the Faroe Islands. Even before the premiere, houses in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Wales showed interest. A DVD production and a translation of the libretto into five languages ​​are also planned. The English translation is already available on the Internet.

Web links