BRING IT TO AMERICA –

August 26, 2010 – Those qualities alone would be enough to make Nordkraft operatic. But in this case, Ejersbo’s novel is best put to one side. Nordkraft the opera trades in the psychological pain that seeps out from between the lines of the author’s three parallel stories. It mostly avoids narrative, preferring to look the trio of addict-protagonists directly in the eye.  Its approach is well served by Signe Lykke’s deft but wide-ranging score and by a libretto from Nila Parly that treads an adroit path between the literal, the poetic and the hypnotic. In Act I, Maria (Nana Bugge Rasmussen) attempts to piece together some sort of future from the wreckage of parental neglect and sexual abuse. Through a tangle of dismembered sounds and voices, she discovers love and lyricism. Industrial noise music competes with the tenderness of a viol consort in Act II’s portrait of Allan (David Kragh Danving), a disfigured seaman whose tough exterior conceals noble sensitivity. Lykke knows how to turn a melody, whether in a moving vocal duet or a cutting instrumental line. Conductor Jakob Hultberg does well to marshal a sprawling, mobile array of chamber orchestra, chorus, two dancers and 10 soloists, but the balance isn’t always held. A transfixing chord sequence concludes Act III, imagined as threnody for Steso (Daniel Carlsson), a junkie who artistically self-destructs by sampling as many substances as possible. He winds up alone, striking a Grecian pose on a plinth downstage as the house lights brighten. Lykke delivers moments of brilliance in her first full-length opera, and she has striking scenography, lighting and acting with her every step of the way.

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