Pacius: The hunt of King Charles

Opera no 96

Pacius: The hunt of King Charles

Soloists

Pori sinfonietta and opera chorus

Sri Rasilanien

Before I started this project I knew nothing of this composer.  He was born in Finland in 1809, coincidentally the year in which it ceased to be under Swedish control and became an autonomous part of Russia. Pacius was actually born in German but moved to Stockholm in his teens and then to Helsinki where he became an important figure in the development of Finnish music - indeed this opera is generally regarded as the true Finnish opera. 

Pacius was obviously well acquainted with early romantic opera. The predominant influence here is Weber and the composers who followed in his wake, such as Marschner and Lortzing. But there are also some elements, particularly in the bigger ensembles, which suggest that he was also familiar with French opera. Until the third act I didn’t detected anything particularly Finnish about the work - but at the beginning of that act there are some quite extensive dance scenes with chorus which do seem deliberately folk-like in style and are obviously there to give some local colour. Whether that colour is actually Finnish is not something I can comment on - it does seem rather general purpose ‘ethnic’ music of the type which you find in a lot of operas of this period.

I thoroughly enjoyed the work - Pacius has a good sense of dramatic pacing and a melodic gift. It is not the greatest opera in the world but it is by no means second rate either. The more that I get into this project them more I realise that the difference between an opera being in the repertoire and it being totally forgotten can be wafer thin. I suspect that there are hundreds of operas out there which given a good performance and a sympathetic staging would stand up very well.

Sibelius: The maiden in the tower

Opera no

Sibelius: the Maiden in the Tower

Soloists

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Neeme Järvi

I knew that Sibelius had written an early opera but I assumed that it was a student work. In fact he was almost 30 when he wrote it: he had already written Kullervo and En Saga, and the first symphony was only a couple of years away. So I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was when the work started in an unmistakably Sibelian idiom. I don’t think that anybody else could have written this. 

The rest of the opera was not quite as distinctive but still highly enjoyable  - the choral music in particular was a highlight. It is all over in about 30 mins. It was only performed three times and then forgotten until it was revived in the 1980s. I think that Sibelius realised that his real metier was symphonic music and he never attempted opera again. In his biography of the composer Erik Tawaststjerna says of the libretto ‘ it was the operatic albatross that Sibelius chose to wear round his neck’ but remarks that that’ considering that it is a first attempt it has moments of unmistakable effectiveness’. The opera would be an interesting curiosity to revive occasionally but as I have commented before there is no real place for short operas in today’s operatic practice.