Eatnama Váibmu (Jordens Hjärta) (2023)
(Sagan om Beijves solskatt)

Eatnama váibmu (The Heart of the Earth) is an opera written in close collaboration with the Norwegian-Sámi author and playwright Rawdna Carita Eira. Her newly written libretto is based on Sámi creation myths, and the opera is a family production aimed at audiences aged 10 and up.

The music in Eatnama váibmu serves an almost ritualistic function. The idea is to draw the listener into a flow of events that is experienced entirely in the present moment, without flashbacks or distanced narration. The heartbeat — the sound of the earth’s pounding heart — runs as a red thread through the score and reinforces the sense that everything is connected from beginning to end.

Percussion, and especially drums, play a major role in the music, as I have drawn inspiration from the Sámi use of the drum as a means of travelling between worlds and dimensions.

The music is composed for large orchestra, six soloists, women’s choir — and a large children’s choir. The children’s choir plays a vital role, first by portraying the Sun, Beavvi, and later by representing singing wild reindeer that are tamed and form a counter-clockwise moving circle. According to the myth, the wild reindeer are tamed through the joik. Here, Rawdna Carita Eira and I have used the melody from a very beautiful traditional joik, Jielemen jeanoe (The River of Life), attributed to Margareta Stinnerbom (born 1855).

The music also contains references to the Danish composer Per Nørgård (1932-2025), as I make use of his infinity series technique in various ways. It appears most clearly in the rhythms of the percussion, but also in the depiction of how a new world is created - through the presentation of an infinity series.

The women’s choir represents the restless spirits who dwell in the shadow world and disturb the Creator, Ipmil, with their constant wailing and noise. Among the soloists is also the deceitful and adventurous Moon, Mannu, sung by a countertenor and often accompanied by a musical saw in the orchestra.

Eatnama váibmu addresses several pressing questions, such as the importance of listening to nature — hearing the heart of the Earth — and how we humans tend to grow bored with what is too easily accessible. The opera ends with the Creator, Ipmil, hiding the good in the world like a treasure deep within the Earth, next to its heart, declaring that from now on, humanity will not reach it without effort and striving.

Britta Byström, 2025