Hey, look, another Danish opera--one of the most popular, I am told. There's a video here, I assume from Danish television--in black and white, but with quite good picture and sound quality for the time. It's not subtitled, but I paid five dollars for the CD release, which includes the complete libretto in Danish, German, and English, so I was able to follow along.
It's a fairly simple one-act opera: a couple is preparing to receive guests--sometime in the winter--only, they cancel. But this mysterious dude who won't give his name shows up, waxes poetic, charms them, and then leaves, teaching them a li'l something about being less up-tight. I guess.
This is extremely delightful and charming; the story sort of makes me think of Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen--in that they're both short comedic operas about couples clarifying their marriages--but the music here is pretty much the opposite of that: it's gorgeous, late-romantic stuff all around, coming to some really transcendent crescendos. Crescendi? The libretto is mainly conversational, with little that you could call an aria per se, but there are little bits of what I guess you could call arioso occasionally bubbling up. Suffice it to say, it's a fine piece of work that is extremely easy on the ears. It's easy to understand why the Danes like it; really, the only mystery is why Dacapo hasn't released a DVD--if you want to promote your national culture, The Royal Guest would be a great way to do that.
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