New Faroese opera is dark and gripping
review
R
Rachel Einarsson2 min read|6. January 2025
The Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen has written a new opera entitled “Regin Smiður”. The opera premiered on 28 December 2024 in Klaksvík, and Klassisk bureau had a special opportunity to be the first reviewer on the spot. Runí Brattaberg was the sole vocal soloist of the piece. Read the first part of the review here, and read the rest at the link at the bottom:
If traffic in, say, central Copenhagen were to grind to a halt, one could simply send for the Czech conductor Norbert Baxa. Having witnessed how he elegantly, discreetly and with great precision steered the various elements and performers in the new opera “Regin Smiður” by Sunleif Rasmussen, one can only bow down.
Although there are not many performers, the music is highly complex in its atonal form, the singer Rúni Brattaberg has a huge role in the modern staging of the ancient textual material, and there is also some technology controlled from elsewhere in the hall that must be coordinated with what happens on stage. In addition there are two dancers who, with great professionalism yet a down-to-earth expression, also hit the right moments in the story. Amid the brutal and at times chaotic soundscape the conductor maintained a fine calm that rubbed off on everything else. Despite the great seriousness at stake. We had come to experience Sunleif Rasmussen's interpretation and presentation of the mythical and dark story of Sjúrður, who becomes involved in a matter of honour and is born with the task of avenging his father's death. A harsh story and at the same time probably also an insight into how the eye-for-an-eye justice of the pre-Christian North was serious and rather violent in practice.
With few means, and very aptly in the spirit of Nordic minimalism, Sunleif Rasmussen has created an absorbing, monumental and wonderfully dark presentation of the story. The saying “Less is more” comes to life.