Savoring a Danish treat, the overture to the opera ‘Maskarade’ by Nielsen

Though rarely performed outside Scandinavian and Nordic nations, Carl Nielsen’s Maskarade was quickly established after its 1906 premiere at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen as the national opera of Denmark.

In 1972, the work finally received its first U.S. professional performances with a production by Minnesota’s St. Paul Opera. A decade later, the Bronx Opera Company presented the work’s New York premiere in 1983. In 2014, Nielsen’s opera saw its Chicago premiere by the Vox 3 Collective at the Vittum Theater. Of that production, Chicago Classical Review critic Lawrence A. Johnson wrote that Maskarade “stands with his best symphonies as one of Nielsen’s finest achievements.”

Though the complete opera remains somewhat of a concert rarity, its overture is another matter. The Carl Nielsen Society reports the overture is one of Nielsen’s most widely performed works at European and North American classical music venues. 

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Danish-born conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, will play Nielsen’s overture, on a program Oct. 22-25 with Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite. (The program also will be performed Oct. 23 at Wheaton College.)

It likely will receive a spirited interpretation from Szeps-Znaider, who is a Nielsen devotee. He chose Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 for his conducting debut. He’s also the president of the Carl Nielsen International Competition (which he won in 1992). And during a 2015 concert honoring Nielsen’s 150th birthday, Szeps-Znaider reminded a Royal Albert Hall audience that "Denmark is not all Lego and pastries!” 

So it’s sobering to think that this Danish treat almost didn’t emerge from the creative oven. Music historians report that Nielsen was so busy finalizing the third act of Maskarade that he neglected its overture until the very last minute. He completed it on Nov. 3, 1906, just eight days before the opera’s opening-night performance.

Throughout his life, Nielsen expressed his deep admiration for the works of Mozart. So not surprisingly, musicologists have compared his Maskarade opening to the overture from The Marriage of Figaro for “its instant energy, witty woodwind lines and immediate immersion into a world of romantic intrigue and masquerade balls.”