Bo Holten, The Visit of the Royal Physician (2009)

What's the state of modern Danish opera? is a question that is often asked.  Well, here's one exemplar, based on a popular Swedish novel about Christian VII, king of Denmark in the latter half of the eighteenth century; and the titular physician.

I cannot speak to how closely this comports with actual history, but the idea here is that the old king has died, leaving Christian in charge.  Unfortunately, he is, as his advisors repeatedly say, "insane."  That seems to be an overstatement; he's childlike and easily manipulated, but one can imagine that with sympathetic helpers acting in good faith, he could have been a decent king--you know, if we have to have a king at all.  But alas.  Well, they decide that he needs a doctor to keep him in check, so they find this reform-minded German doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee, to look after him.  Struensee becomes close to the king and eventually the de facto ruler, issuing sweeping egalitarian reforms to the state.  He also has an affair with the queen, a teenage English princess who is definitely not getting any satisfaction from her husband.  The powers that be, notably the brutal minister Ove Høegh-Guldberg, do not appreciate Struensee's interference, and he's finally arrested for allegedly plotting against the king's life (the king himself wants to pardon him, but he is too weak and ineffectual) and executed in gruesome fashion.  A brutal conclusion of the old school, although the text tries to sort of give Struensee a final victory: the last words of the opera are the king saying how weird it is that in spite of everything, people are talking about the Age of Struensee and not the Age of Guldberg.

I found the libretto rather confusing; the specific manner of Struensee's downfall is unclear.  Still, the opera as a whole was all right.  I did not find the music--more or less tonal stuff--super-memorable, but it carried the story.  As others have noted, the sound recording is not altogether optimal, but I am not an audiophile and it didn't bother me overly.

I'd love to see some more Danish opera--particularly from the nineteenth century, which I never have--but easier said than done.  I could if I were willing to do without subtitles, but that's a heavy lift.  We will see.