Michael Schønwandt - Hartmann, J.P.E.: Liden Kirsten (Little Christine) (1999)

Little Kirsten (‘Liden Kirsten’; 1845-6) was the third opera composed by Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805-1900) and the second in collaboration with Hans Christian Andersen. Based on a medieval tale, set in post-Viking, Christianized Denmark, the story concerns the daughter of Lady Malfred, Little Kirsten. The night before Kirsten is due to enter a convent, a peasant woman, Ingeborg, is sad that her son Sverkel has not returned from service with the Emperor in Miklagard (Constantinople), for Sverkel and Kirsten as children were like brother and sister. A jester opines that Sverkel is Kirsten’s brother, albeit illegitimate (and fostered to hide Lady Malfred’s shame), which Ingeborg denies. Sverkel arrives out of the blue and is amazed at how Kirsten has blossomed into a woman. During a ball, Sverkel dissuades Kirsten from entering the convent, but Lady Malfred refuses his request for Kirsten’s hand in marriage, revealing that Sverkel really is her son, and Kirsten’s brother. A happy ending is never in doubt, however: Ingeborg confirms that Sverkel was her son all along, Malfred’s having died as an infant, and so the pair are free to marry.
Hartmann’s music is charming, full of tunes, and beautifully orchestrated. The style lies somewhere between Die Zauberflote and early Mendelssohn (who was still alive when the opera was written; a possible 1990s equivalent pair might be, say, Bartok and George Benjamin). Little Kirsten is beautifully sung, with Inger Dam-Jensen radiant in the title-role and Poul Elming suitably, if genteelly, ardent. The only weak link in the cast is Gert Henning-Jensen as the Jester, who sounds strained in Act 1, though less so in Act 2. The whole is welded together expertly by Michael Schonwandt, who draws refined playing and singing from the forces of Danish National Radio. Da Capo’s recording is nicely focused, too. Each 45-minute act gets its own disc, which means the playing time is rather ungenerous for a full-price release. Little Kirsten may not be in the same league as Kunzen’s Ogier the Dane (Da Capo, 7/96), still less Heise’s King and Marshall (Schonwandt again, Chandos, 6/93), but it is a delight none the less.'