Peter Heise, Drot og marsk (1878)

Nineteenth-century Danish opera ahoy.  Boom.  This is fun: there's a 1988 TV movie of this that someone uploaded to youtube.  Only problem is, naturally, the language thing.  But!  It DOES have Danish subtitles.  So is there anything stopping me from just typing them all into google translate?  Well, there's the fact that this takes WAY longer than you might think.  Well, I don't know what "you" think, but I had it in my head that given that operas generally have less text than non-musical plays, it maybe wouldn't take that long.  That was a dumb thing to think.  Less text it may be, but it's STILL twenty-four dang pages' worth.  Also, there's the fact that google translate is REALLY bad at Danish, or at least this nineteenth-century Danish, and a lot of it comes out as baffling gibberish.  So...those might be things that stopped you, if you were going to be stopped.  But I was not, and it DID let me follow the plot in spite of everything.  In the wildly unlikely event that anyone's interested, you can download the fruits of my efforts file here.

So!  Yes.  The title means "king and marshal."  The King is Eric V of Norway, who historically was assassinated by Stig Andersen, the marshal.  Eric is a bit of a womanizer: the opera opens with him swooping in to seduce a charcoal girl, Aase, whom one of his knights, Rane, had likewise been trying to pick up, claiming he'll make her his queen.  Back at the court, Stig shows up.  He's going off to fight the Swedes (as you do if you're a Dane), and he wants to leave his wife, Ingeborg, under the king's protection.  Bad idea: the instant Stig leaves, Eric's putting the moves on her, even though Aase is right there.  He's quite a piece of work.  In spite of her resistance, he persists, and it's unclear whether he ultimately rapes her or just seduces her, but something happens.  Stig returns victorious, learns that his wife has been dishonored, and accuses the king of raping her.  He claims it was consensual, but either way, he swears his revenge.  It seems that just about everyone hates Eric, so he cooks up a conspiracy with them: they'll dress up as monks and Rane will convince him to go out hunting and lead him to where they're waiting for him.  As for Ingeborg, after saying her goodbyes with her husband, she seems to just disappear.  The wikipedia article claims that she commits suicide, which is certainly what you'd expect from an opera like this, but if that's anywhere in the libretto, it fell victim to google's incompetence.  Anyway, the hunting trip meets with logistical issues, and Eric finds himself at Aase's hut (she having returned to the woods to resume her humble life).  After making a failed cursory effort to re-seduce her (this guy!), he runs away, leaving his sword behind.  He and Rane find a farmhouse at which to take shelter for the night, during which Stig and his men come and murder him, he being helpless without his sword (I mean, they probably would've taken him anyway, but still).  Aase come by with said sword, but it's too late.  Stig is going into exile, we're told.  The real Stig became an actual-factual pirate after his exile, apparently.  Way to reinvent yourself, man.

So yes!  I really enjoyed this music.  It's nothing mind-boggling, and nothing I would call typically Danish (I have no idea what that would mean), but it's very strong romantic stuff of the era, with some very dramatic moments.  What I really appreciated about it was the characterization of the king in the latter half: his feelings of angst, his premonitions of doom--very atmospheric, and definitely makes him into more of a character than he might've been.  That's enough to elevate this above other, similar works.  The video and audio quality here is okay, but a contemporary performance with better sound, picture, and subtitles would be just ducky.  I'm sort of surprised there's no DVD of this, given that there IS a Danish classical music label.  Go for it, guyz!

This was a positive experience, and now that I have this sort of proof-of-concept, I feel that the variety of opera recordings available to me has expanded, which is awesome.  So we'll see what the future holds!