Murder on the Titanic (2019)
(a murder mystery opera in two acts)

I always wanted to write a big ensemble opera for the yearly opera productions at RDAM - the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and thought a murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie would be the perfect subject. I asked the writer Lea Marie Løppenthin if she would be interested in writing the libretto, and fortunately, she agreed, providing me with the funniest libretto I have ever come across.

Setting the story on the Titanic meant that we could solve the dramaturgical problems of a detective opera - when the story starts to lose steam, we just make it about a shipwreck instead! It also meant that we could balance the comical absurdity of the first act with the human tragedy of the second. We decided to populate the ship with a mixture of historical and fictional characters with very different backgrounds. I have tried to distinguish the characters with the music too - ethereal music for the poets, earthy music for the Southerners, bel canto for the old opera singer, and so on. Along the way, there are little musical homages to Sciarrino, Strauss, Gudmundsen- Holmgreen, folk music, and above all, Mozart.

The director Natascha Metherell has been a constant help throughout the writing process - I am eternally grateful for her insights!

Matias Vestergård, January 2019