Finland is one of those countries where the “national anthem” isn’t the national anthem. “Waltzing Matilda” is Australia’s real anthem, as everyone knows, while the official one is some forgettable piece of music called “March On Australia Fair Sis Boom Bah Rah Rah Rah”, or something to that effect. Similarly with Finland. Everyone outside that country assumes that Sibelius’ “Finlandia” is the national anthem. It isn’t. An immigrant German named Fredrik Pacius composed the official one ― “Maamme”. Something of an anthem machine, he also composed one for Estonia! (“Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm”). This is all understandable when you reflect that, in the 19th century, Finland and Estonia were culturally marginal places on the backwoods fringes of Europe. Pacius founded Finland’s first symphony orchestra, and composed it’s first opera. European music spread, like Christianity, by the impudence of missionaries.
Which brings me to the opera in question, “The Hunt of King Charles”. It premiered in 1852, when Verdi was mounting his vast productions, and Wagner was already a major influence, but such extravagant stuff was far beyond the skills and budget of Finland’s semi-amateur musicians, and doubtless would have baffled a provincial audience. Pacius composed a modest singspiel, with lots of spoken dialogue between the songs. The King, the central role, doesn’t sing at all! At the time, Finnish was still considered too savage a language for cultural expression, and the opera was performed in Swedish (Kung Karls jakt). However, nowadays, it’s performed in Finnish as Kaarle-kuninkaan metsästys. Finnish is a fabulous language for opera, with clear, expressive vowels that are ideal for bel canto. Unfortunately, there are very few operas written in the language from the period when opera was truly popular. The libretto was by the Finnish-Swedish composer Zacharias Topelius. The subject matter was drawn from Finnish history, during the long centuries when Finland was a province of Sweden, and is loosely based on the brief visit of King Karl XI to the Åland Islands. Pacius worked a few “native” elements into the work, which otherwise is musically pretty German. In the market scene, a woman is shown strumming a Finnish kantele, and a blind musician plays a Finnish tune. On the whole, the thing isn’t bad, and the last act ends with a rousing patriotic tune: “Nyt kauaksi Suomi jaada saa” (“Though now we depart from Finland’s shore”). On the whole, it’s fairly entertaining.
The performance I have is by the Pori Opera Choir and Sinfonietta, conducted by Ari Rasilainen, and features Tero Aalto, Kristiina Kattelus, Mauri Vesant, and Pekka Kähkönen.
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