{"id":1269,"date":"2009-07-28T23:18:46","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T03:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2018-08-08T22:48:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T02:48:35","slug":"fredrik-pacius-opera-the-hunt-of-king-charles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1269","title":{"rendered":"Fredrik Pacius\u2019 opera, \u201cThe Hunt of King Charles\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fin\u00adland is one of those coun\u00adtries where the \u201cnation\u00adal anthem\u201d isn\u2019t the nation\u00adal anthem.&nbsp;\u201cWaltz\u00ading Matil\u00adda\u201d is Aus\u00adtrali\u00ada\u2019s real anthem, as every\u00adone knows, while the offi\u00adcial one is some for\u00adget\u00adtable piece of music called \u201cMarch On Aus\u00adtralia Fair Sis Boom Bah Rah Rah Rah\u201d, or some\u00adthing to that effect.&nbsp;Sim\u00adi\u00adlar\u00adly with Fin\u00adland.&nbsp;Every\u00adone out\u00adside that coun\u00adtry assumes that Sibelius\u2019 \u201c<em>Fin\u00adlan\u00addia<\/em>\u201d is the nation\u00adal anthem.&nbsp;It isn\u2019t.&nbsp;An immi\u00adgrant Ger\u00adman named Fredrik Pacius com\u00adposed the offi\u00adcial one \u2015 \u201c<em>Maamme<\/em>\u201d. <!--more-->Some\u00adthing of an anthem machine, he also com\u00adposed one for Esto\u00adnia! (\u201c<em>Mu isamaa, mu \u00f5nn ja r\u00f5\u00f5m<\/em>\u201d).&nbsp;This is all under\u00adstand\u00adable when you reflect that, in the 19th cen\u00adtu\u00adry, Fin\u00adland and Esto\u00adnia were cul\u00adtur\u00adal\u00adly mar\u00adgin\u00adal places on the back\u00adwoods fringes of Europe.&nbsp;Pacius found\u00aded Fin\u00adland\u2019s first sym\u00adpho\u00adny orches\u00adtra, and com\u00adposed it\u2019s first opera.&nbsp;Euro\u00adpean music spread, like Chris\u00adtian\u00adi\u00adty, by the impu\u00addence of missionaries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Which brings me to the opera in ques\u00adtion, \u201cThe Hunt of King Charles\u201d.&nbsp;It pre\u00admiered in 1852, when Ver\u00addi was mount\u00ading his vast pro\u00adduc\u00adtions, and Wag\u00adn\u00ader was already a major influ\u00adence, but such extrav\u00ada\u00adgant stuff was far beyond the skills and bud\u00adget of Fin\u00adland\u2019s semi-ama\u00adteur musi\u00adcians, and doubt\u00adless would have baf\u00adfled a provin\u00adcial audi\u00adence. Pacius com\u00adposed a mod\u00adest singspiel, with lots of spo\u00adken dia\u00adlogue between the songs.&nbsp;The King, the cen\u00adtral role, does\u00adn\u2019t sing at all!&nbsp;At the time, Finnish was still con\u00adsid\u00adered too sav\u00adage a lan\u00adguage for cul\u00adtur\u00adal expres\u00adsion, and the opera was per\u00adformed in Swedish (<em>Kung Karls jakt<\/em>).&nbsp;How\u00adev\u00ader, nowa\u00addays, it\u2019s per\u00adformed in Finnish as <em>Kaar\u00adle-kuninkaan met\u00ads\u00e4stys<\/em>.&nbsp;Finnish is a fab\u00adu\u00adlous lan\u00adguage for opera, with clear, expres\u00adsive vow\u00adels that are ide\u00adal for bel can\u00adto.&nbsp;Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnate\u00adly, there are very few operas writ\u00adten in the lan\u00adguage from the peri\u00adod when opera was tru\u00adly pop\u00adu\u00adlar.&nbsp;The libret\u00adto was by the Finnish-Swedish com\u00adpos\u00ader Zacharias Topelius. The sub\u00adject mat\u00adter was drawn from Finnish his\u00adto\u00adry, dur\u00ading the long cen\u00adturies when Fin\u00adland was a province of Swe\u00adden, and is loose\u00adly based on the brief vis\u00adit of King Karl <span class=\"caps\">XI<\/span> to the \u00c5land Islands. Pacius worked a few \u201cnative\u201d ele\u00adments into the work, which oth\u00ader\u00adwise is musi\u00adcal\u00adly pret\u00adty Ger\u00adman.&nbsp;In the mar\u00adket scene, a woman is shown strum\u00adming a Finnish kan\u00adtele, and a blind musi\u00adcian plays a Finnish tune.&nbsp;On the whole, the thing isn\u2019t bad, and the last act ends with a rous\u00ading patri\u00adot\u00adic tune: \u201c<em>Nyt kauak\u00adsi Suo\u00admi jaa\u00adda saa<\/em>\u201d (\u201cThough now we depart from Fin\u00adland\u2019s shore\u201d).&nbsp;On the whole, it\u2019s fair\u00adly entertaining.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The per\u00adfor\u00admance I have is by the Pori Opera Choir and Sin\u00adfoni\u00adet\u00adta, con\u00adduct\u00aded by Ari Rasi\u00adlainen, and fea\u00adtures Tero Aal\u00adto, Kris\u00adti\u00adina&nbsp;Kat\u00adtelus, Mau\u00adri Vesant, and Pekka K\u00e4hk\u00f6nen.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fin\u00adland is one of those coun\u00adtries where the \u201cnation\u00adal anthem\u201d isn\u2019t the nation\u00adal anthem.&nbsp;\u201cWaltz\u00ading Matil\u00adda\u201d is Aus\u00adtrali\u00ada\u2019s real anthem, as every\u00adone knows, while the offi\u00adcial one is some for\u00adget\u00adtable piece of music called \u201cMarch On Aus\u00adtralia Fair Sis Boom&nbsp;Bah&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1269\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-cr-listening-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7990,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/7990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}