The Association of Danish Music Publishers has been awarding the Carl Prisen, named after the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen, to outstanding composers since 2013. Simon Steen-Andersen is awarded the prize for his opera Don Giovanni's Inferno, which premiered in April.
For Don Giovanni's Inferno, the Danish artist took on the concept, direction, staging, video - and the re-composition of various passages and snippets from the opera literature. His work begins where Mozart's opera ends: with the hellish journey of Don Giovanni, who embarks on a voyage into the furthest corners of the labyrinthine opera house and into the depths of music history at the same time. Or is this trip just the coma room of the opera singer who bangs his head against the trapdoor?
After another version of the work under the title Don Giovanni aux enfers has already been performed with great success in Strasbourg at the Opéra national du Rhin, the new version Don Giovanni's Inferno, tailor-made for the opera house in Copenhagen, was shown in Copenhagen in April and May in six performances with the Ensemble Ictus, the Royal Danish Opera Chorus and the Royal Danish Orchestra under the direction of Bassem Akiki.
Royal Danish Opera
