Beasts of the Forest
Nicole Chan, Anna Christine Bauer, Anna Hjortkjær, Victoria Sjögren, soprano

Per Nørgård: Gilgamesh Opera (in 6 days and 7 nights), for 6 instrumental and vocal ensembles. (1971-72) (90’)
Libretto by the composer (based on the Babylonian epos).

Per Nørgård’s Gilgamesh is a pioneer major work in contemporary Danish opera, and it was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1974. The text is based on one of the oldest accounts of the Creation, the 4000-year- old Gilgamesh epic from Mesopotamia, which portrays the super-hero and anti-hero Gilgamesh, who both loses and gains love in his restless search for power and eternal life. The singers and musicians performing in the opera do so on an equal footing in a mythological universe around which the sun-god Shamash – the conductor – orbits, and in which the audience get right up close to the dramatic events. And with music which, permeated by beauty beyond new and old, open up completely new horizons, the scene is set for a musical-dramatic experience that is unequalled.
For the first time, the Rued Langgaard Festival invites you inside Ribelund, which, despite its position in the heart of Ribe, is an unknown place to many people. An obvious choice of venue for this 4000-year-old actuality.

For more information, click here to the Rued Langgaard Festival full program and click here to The Royal Danish Academy of Music’s news article.