ELEGIER OVER JORDEN
Premiere 05.03 2026
Dates:
Glyptoteket, Copenhagen, March 5th-8th 2026
An elegy is a lament that mourns what has been lost. In ‘Earth Elegies’ the song calls for awakening, in a confrontation with our 2000-year-old cultural Christian view that everything is created from above. An attitude that has so greatly influenced our view of nature, disenchanted nature and contributed to inappropriate exploitation of the resources of the Earth.
In ‘Earth Elegies’, the Greek goddess Persephone returns to the Central Hall of the Glyptotekto give birth. Persephone is goddess of the underworld and daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest. Like the regeneration of crops, her birth is a long one: we follow her labor of birth over nine months together with a choir of young girls who work in the fields and struggle, while night frosts, drought and dust storms threaten the harvest, before the laments are finally released in a proclamation of spring and life.
In Sofie Isager Ahl's new poetry collection, Persephone is recalled as an image of what sprouts through the darkness of the Earth. Labor is not a moment, but a work. The choir of young voices moves like rolling fields through the hall, and the song holds back the world for a moment. In this musical staging at the Glyptotek, Sofie Isager Ahl's words are given body and sound through Katinka Fogh Vindelev's composition. The choreography, created by Marie Topp, allows the body to experience what the voice sings about: exhaustion, endurance and transformation. Slowness does not become stillness, but movement in deep time.
With 70 singers from the Sankt Annæ Girls' Choir, strings and soprano Katinka Fogh Vindelev herself, the work unfolds as a sensual ritual about birth, care and regeneration. The audience enters a choreographic staging where time is stretched, voices move through space, and the body becomes the carrier of the story.
The performance concert at the Glyptotek is based on Sofie Isager Ahl's poetry collection'Earth Elegies’, which will be published on February 27, 2026 by Forlaget Virkelig. The poems revolve around loss, regeneration and care for the living.
Casper Koeller, Sceneblog
Jakob Gustav Winckler, iscene
Credits:
Katinka Fogh Vindelev, composer, soprano and performer
Sofie Isager Ahl, author
Marie Topp, choreographer
Karin Gille, scenographer
Copenhagen Girls’ Choir under the direction of conductor Anne-Terese Sales
Trine Heide, producer Produced by Kind of Opera
‘Earth Elegies’ is supported by The Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, Axel Muusfeldt’s Foundation, William Demant Foundation, Danish Musicians' Association, Danish Artists' Association, Danish Composers' Association.
Premiere 05.03 2026
Dates:
Glyptoteket, Copenhagen, March 5th-8th 2026
An elegy is a lament that mourns what has been lost. In ‘Earth Elegies’ the song calls for awakening, in a confrontation with our 2000-year-old cultural Christian view that everything is created from above. An attitude that has so greatly influenced our view of nature, disenchanted nature and contributed to inappropriate exploitation of the resources of the Earth.
In ‘Earth Elegies’, the Greek goddess Persephone returns to the Central Hall of the Glyptotekto give birth. Persephone is goddess of the underworld and daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest. Like the regeneration of crops, her birth is a long one: we follow her labor of birth over nine months together with a choir of young girls who work in the fields and struggle, while night frosts, drought and dust storms threaten the harvest, before the laments are finally released in a proclamation of spring and life.
In Sofie Isager Ahl's new poetry collection, Persephone is recalled as an image of what sprouts through the darkness of the Earth. Labor is not a moment, but a work. The choir of young voices moves like rolling fields through the hall, and the song holds back the world for a moment. In this musical staging at the Glyptotek, Sofie Isager Ahl's words are given body and sound through Katinka Fogh Vindelev's composition. The choreography, created by Marie Topp, allows the body to experience what the voice sings about: exhaustion, endurance and transformation. Slowness does not become stillness, but movement in deep time.
With 70 singers from the Sankt Annæ Girls' Choir, strings and soprano Katinka Fogh Vindelev herself, the work unfolds as a sensual ritual about birth, care and regeneration. The audience enters a choreographic staging where time is stretched, voices move through space, and the body becomes the carrier of the story.
The performance concert at the Glyptotek is based on Sofie Isager Ahl's poetry collection'Earth Elegies’, which will be published on February 27, 2026 by Forlaget Virkelig. The poems revolve around loss, regeneration and care for the living.
" Kind Of Opera's ELEGIES OVER THE EARTH at the Glyptoteket is not just an exemplary collaboration between a small, but never stagnant opera company, and one of Denmark's most iconic museums – it is also a wonderful staging, where Sofie Isager Ahl's poems are given wings to fly with, images to lean on, and a memorable corpus of flesh, blood and terrifyingly beautiful tones. "
Casper Koeller, Sceneblog
" When the girls' choir takes up position right in front of me at one point and sings so dazzlingly pure that the room almost freezes over, this new father can no longer hold back his tears. What kind of toxic soil is this that our children have to grow up in? In an instant, the enchantment of parenthood can turn into a crushing melancholy of responsibility. That ambivalence is better sung than explained. "
Jakob Gustav Winckler, iscene
Credits:
Katinka Fogh Vindelev, composer, soprano and performer
Sofie Isager Ahl, author
Marie Topp, choreographer
Karin Gille, scenographer
Copenhagen Girls’ Choir under the direction of conductor Anne-Terese Sales
Trine Heide, producer Produced by Kind of Opera
‘Earth Elegies’ is supported by The Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, Axel Muusfeldt’s Foundation, William Demant Foundation, Danish Musicians' Association, Danish Artists' Association, Danish Composers' Association.