At this year's Hans Christian Andersen Festival, on August 22 and 23, Odense Symphony Orchestra will present the Danish Premiere of The Thirteenth Child, Poul Ruders' newest opera, with a libretto by Becky and David Starobin.
Co-commissioned by Santa Fe Opera and Odense Symphony Orchestra, The Thirteenth Child is a free interpretation of the Brothers Grimm's dark fairytale The Twelve Brothers, a story of treason, love, murder, and magic.
It all begins with two neighboring kingdoms in crisis. The embittered Drokan, Regent of Hauven, convinces his cousin, King Hjarne of Frohagord, that Hjarne's twelve sons are plotting to overthrow him. Filled with rage Hjarne swears that the sons must be driven away. His future child — the 13th — has to be a girl, for "Only she shall wear the crown."
The Thirteenth Child is an unalloyed success...a threshold to the mysterious realms of the unconscious, even the astral, a place where flowers can transform into ravens in the blink of an eye. It acts as a reminder that true theatricality is alive and well; it reminds us that Ruders’s chameleon ability to move between musical vernaculars, yet to speak always the truth, puts him up there with the finest of living composers. The stunning recording enables us fully to throw ourselves into this magical parallel world.
Colin Clarke, Fanfare
Performance details
Odense Symphony Orchestra
David Angus, conductor
Det Unge VokalEnsemble (DUVE)
Poul Emborg, conductor
Johan Klint Sandberg, director
