NORGARD: Siddharta / Percussion Concerto, 'For a Change'

Composed 1974-1979
Opera-ballet in 3 acts (I Morning, II Noon, III Evening)
Libretto by the composer in cooperation with Ole Sarvig
First performance 18.3.1983 at the Opera, Kungliga Teatern, Stockholm
Revised 1983 (the section called Darkness Falls)
Length: 2 hours

Siddharta was Per Nørgård's third opera after Labyrinten (1963) and Gilgamesh (1972). It was composed as part of a major project commissioned by the national operas in Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen, comprising four operas by four different Scandinavian composers. Each was to be performed for the first time at the national opera in the composer's native country, and would then tour the others.
After the success of Gilgamesh in Stockholm, much more interest was shown in Per Nørgård's new opera there than at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, and Nørgård sent his score to both theatres at the same time,
The first performance took place in Stockholm in March 1983. The first performance in Denmark was in 1984 - a concert performance by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation - and in 1987 the opera was produced at the Royal Theatre.
Per Nørgård had called Siddharta an 'opera-ballet', thereby underlining the balance he had striven to achieve between the music, the theatrical element and the choreography. Dance, acting and choral scenes play a major part in the work. Several of the main parts - such as Maya and Amra - are not played by singers, but by dancers.

Text and story
The text for Siddharta was written in cooperation with the poet, Ole Sarvig, whose poetry interested Nørgård a great deal in the middle of the 1970s. He made use of it in the choral works, Frostsalme (Frost Hymn) Vinterkantate (Winter Cantata) and Kredsløb (Circulation). This textual cooperation was unusual: Per Nørgård did not want to compose a 'writer's opera', putting music to an already completed libretto. He was looking for an integrated process, in which text and music influenced each other and grew interactively. Sometimes the music arose as an abstract harmonic vision before words were put to it; at other times, Nørgård wrote fragments of text himself, which Sarvig could elaborate on if he wanted to:
In fact, Ole took a paternal interest in these baby cuckoos and breathed creatively on their feathers with his poetic muse, so that they fitted into his own contributions without attracting too much attention. One by-product of this cooperation, moreover, was that Ole insisted on only being credited for 'assistance'.
The opera is based on the 2,500 year-old legend about the childhood of the young Buddha, the son of the king at the palace of Kapilavastu - before he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha.
After composing the opera Gilgamesh, the hero of which passes by way of loss to self-control and a love for his fellow beings, Per Nørgård was interested in following up this same idea, but at another psychological level.
Prince Siddharta was apparently born with special qualities, and it was foretold that the child would become the ruler of the world, though it was uncertain whether this would be at the secular or spiritual level. Siddharta's father strongly wished his son to be brought up as a secular ruler and did all that was in his power to prevent a spiritual awakening. The king created an artificial environment around Siddharta - a palace and garden of pleasure where the boy grew up surrounded by beauty, joy and happiness. All signs of transience, illness and imperfection were banished from his sight.
The young Siddharta threw himself into all these worldly pleasures with great enthusiasm, and he married the beautiful and intelligent Princess Yasodara, who bore him a son. But in the end, the deception was revealed. Siddharta was 'accidentally' initiated into the dark side of human existence, and with this awareness was forced to leave the palace and those who dwell there - all that had made up his life and happiness - in order to journey out alone into the world.