• Niels Marthinsen
  • Snehvides Spejl - Operatrailer (2010)
    (Snow White's Mirror - Opera Trailer)

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
  • 2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn/4331/timp.2perc/str
  • 10 min

Programme Note

Repertoire operas occationally have orchestral suites: Bits and pieces of overture, interlude, etc. tied up in a bouquet of 'schönste Tränen'. Contemporary opera usually wither after the first season, so the focus is on getting people to come and have a sniff before it's too late. Consequently it seemed obvious to me to start making orchestral excerpts from my operas that are meant to be played before the premiere (and after, please); I call them 'opera trailers' when they're substantial enough to be considered independent works, and 'opera demos' when they're relatively short and more appetizer-ish.

Snow White's Mirror is a full scale two act dramatic opera written for the Danish National Opera; the premiere is scheduled for August 2011. The opera is a modern re-telling for grown-ups of the brothers Grimm's fairy tale: Snow White is a self-centered teenage narcissist and the villain of the opera; she ends up loosing everyone but herself, either because she kills them, or because they decide they can't stand being around her anymore. But apparently she's o.k. with that...

The music is intended for a large audience: it's basically pop music done with all the craftmanship of a classical composer who's equally at home with large scale symphonic form, avantgarde technique, opera singing - and modern pop.

The Trailer is in three movements. It contains three sections of the opera; the prelude, an interlude close to the beginning of the second act, and the final scene but one. It's a gloomy sort of trailer, starting out in grand title sequence style, moving on to a decidedly odd piece where Snow White find her way to the dwarfs (who're creepy junkies doing pornography to get money to buy dope), and ending in kind of an eerie rejection mood: Everyone still alive walks out on Snow White, singing 'skin as white as snow, hands red with blood, soul as black as ivory'.

- NM 2010

Media

Snehvides Spejl (Snow White's Mirror): I. Allegro
Snehvides Spejl (Snow White's Mirror): II. Cool
Snehvides Spejl (Snow White's Mirror): III. Andante

Discography