The Royal Danish Opera
The Royal Danish Opera is a home for the unmatched live experience of opera and symphonic music. We welcome artists and ideas from all over the world and export art made in Denmark to the world.
Artistic Director
Elisabeth Linton is Artistic Director of Opera at the Royal Danish Theatre. She comes from a position as Chief Dramaturg at Malmö Opera. She trained as a stage director at the Danish National School of Performing Arts, specializing in opera, and over the past 25 years she has worked as a director and dramaturg across the Nordic region and Europe in opera, musical theatre, and drama.
At the Royal Danish Theatre, Elisabeth has staged the operas Der Rosenkavalier, La bohème, Under the Sky, Nabucco and Momo and the Time Thieves, the play The Three Musketeers in Ulvedalene and Matilda the Musical.
Among her other productions are The Confessional (which won a Reumert Award for Best Opera in 2007) and Eugene Onegin at the Danish National Opera, Tristan und Isolde at the Finnish National Opera; Don Juan at Stadttheater Bern; Xerxes at Den Ny Opera; The Makropulos Affair and Orpheus in the Underworld at Malmö Opera; The Snow Queen at Malmö Opera and the Royal Swedish Opera; Evita at Aalborg Theatre; and Jesus Christ Superstar at Aarhus Theatre.
The History of the Royal Danish Opera
Opera has been part of courtly entertainment since 1634, when King Christian IV hosted the most lavish celebration in Danish history. On this occasion, the German composer Heinrich Schütz presented four multimedia spectacles, introducing the new Italian operatic style – complete with a true castrato singer. In 1689, disaster struck when Denmark’s first opera house, built of pine, burned to the ground during only its second performance, claiming nearly 200 lives. Throughout the first century of opera in Denmark, visits from foreign opera troupes were a rare sight, indeed.
In 1747, King Frederik V and his musically gifted Queen Louise established an Italian opera company at Charlottenborg Palace by Kongens Nytorv. Five years later, the troupe moved into the adjacent newly built theatre, Komediehuset – later to become the Royal Danish Theatre. There, Danish actors performed comedies in their native tongue one evening, while the next was reserved for Italian language specialists singing operas in a language scarcely understood by the citizens of Copenhagen. Opera at the time clearly relied on the patronage of the monarchy and aristocracy, while ordinary townspeople favoured Danish playwright Holberg’s lively comedies.
The shift to operas being performed in Danish began in 1757, when Danish actors were tasked with singing newly written librettos to music originally composed for the theatre’s Italian singers – with results that were hardly impressive. By 1778, Italian-language opera had disappeared entirely from the Royal Danish Theatre, and for the next two centuries both spoken drama and opera were performed exclusively in Danish. In the early 19th century, the same permanent ensemble of around 25 actors undertook all roles across both art forms, whether by Holberg or Mozart.
In 1819, the theatre engaged the Italian tenor Giuseppe Siboni as Vocal Director, charged with raising the company’s artistic standards. Over the course of the century, it became increasingly uncommon for artists to perform both drama and opera. Two milestones marked the path towards internationalisation: the inauguration of the new theatre – today’s Old Stage – in 1874, and the appointment of conductor Johan Svendsen as Music Director in 1883. Well into the 20th century, operas were still performed in Danish with a permanent ensemble of singers, but from the 1960s works such as Wagner’s were increasingly staged in their original language.
The decisive step towards internationalisation came with the introduction of surtitles above the stage in 1989, enabling audiences to follow the drama regardless of the performance language. However, the physical constraints of the Old Stage grew ever more unsuitable for opera, and the debate over a new opera house continued. In 2005, the Royal Danish Opera finally moved into a purpose-built venue. Since then, the city’s waterfront Opera House has been home to the vast majority of the company’s productions and activities.
Opera Soloists
The Royal Danish Opera Soloist Ensemble features more than 20 opera soloists from all over Scandinavia.
Many of the ensemble singers also enjoy distinguished international careers and perform extensively, both nationally and internationally.
Det Kongelige Operakor
The Royal Danish Opera Chorus
The Royal Danish Opera Chorus consists of 40 singers fairly evenly divided between men and women. For operas with a large chorus such as the operas of Wagner the permanent chorus is exstended with numerous assistants.
The opera chorus apears in the majority of the operatic repertoire, and chorus members practice during the day and participate in performances in the evening - often several performances alternately.
Thesingers must be able to sing in a multitude of different languages including German, French, English, Italian, Russian and Czech. The singers in the opera chorus often have several different roles in the course of just a single performance.
Pianister
Administration
Administrative Director: Carina Johansson
Executive Secretary: Gitte Busk Grønbech
Resource Manager: Piet Bossant
Head of stage: Signe Baasch
Finance: Anna Freese
Project Managers: Anne Sophie Fogedby, Anna Kind, Silje Reichert Aass
Head of Planning: Rikke Mortensen
Head Staff Director: Line Kromann
Head of Soloist Ensemble: Palle Knudsen
Dramaturg: Jørgen Hansen
Casting consultant: Dominik Licht
Opera Coordinators: Jakob Esposito og Tore Sætum
Stage Managers: Berit Wolsted Jones, Martin Korshagen, Naja Fribert, Andrea Støier Andersen
Casting Office Coordinator: Anne Hauger
Chorus Master: Vacant
Chorus Administrator: Lene Halvor Petersen
Head of Music/Studienleiter: Orsi Fajger
Répétiteurs: Ian Ryan, Leif Greibe, Thomas Bagwell, Nick Fletcher
Programme Editor: Mariann Sejer Wichmann Matthiessen
PR and Press: Louise Pedersen
Project Coordinator: Liv Nørding Pedersen
Part of the rehearsal room team: Jes Bigom
Student Assistant: Jonathan Ndlovu