Jury's reasoning There are not many original opera texts written in Norwegian, but “Med kniven på strupen” by Vigdis Hjorth is definitely one of them. It is witty, to the point and delightfully theatrical in its associations with the macabre tradition of Bartok's “Bluebeard” and Sondheim's “Sweeney Todd”. Precisely the opera form's requirement for the opposite of wordy dialogue, […]
/ 31/03/2014 / codexThere aren't many original opera texts written in Norwegian, but "Med kniven på strupen" by Vigdis Hjorth is definitely one of them. It is witty, to the point and delightfully theatrical in its associations with the macabre tradition of Bartok's "Bluebeard" and Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd".
The operatic form's requirement for the opposite of a wordy dialogue is well taken care of here, and makes way for a situational comedy that does not need long translations and explanations to be effective. “With a knife in your throat” is a blood-spattered text from a driven author who does not hesitate to use established genre concepts as a starting point for modern musical theatre. The text triggers musical actions – it is a textual trampoline that creates good, pointed situations. With the libretto for “With a knife in your throat”, Hjorth has intuitively understood what is required of a text to accommodate the dynamics of the operatic form.