Lili Elbe
Lili Elbe is an opera in two acts based on the life of Lili Elbe (1882-1931) one of the first persons to undergo gender affirmation surgery.
OPERA IN TWO ACTS
Libretto (Eng) by Aryeh Lev Stollman
“An iridescent experience, moving in its truthfulness”
— Egbert Tholl, Süddeutsche Zeitung
Details
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World Premiere: Sunday, October 22, 2023 at Theater St. Gallen, Switzerland
Instrumentation: 2(pic)2(ca)2(bcl)2(cbn)-4.2.2.1-timp.1perc-hp.pno-str(10.8.6.6.4)
Duration: ca. 100’
Publisher: Schott Helicon Music Corporation
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LILI ELBE and LILI BEFORE (Historically known as Einar Wegener, pre- transition), Baritone
GERDA WEGENER, Wife of Lili Before, Soprano
ANNA LARSEN BJØRNER, Famous actress and friend of Gerda and Lili, Mezzo- Soprano (also playing ORPHEUS)
HÉLÈNE ALLATINI, wife of Ernst Harthern,friends of Lili Before and Gerda (also playing EURYDICE), Mezzo-soprano
CLAUDE LEJEUNE, Fiancé of Lili, Tenor
MARIUS WEGENER, Lili’s brother, Baritone
PROFESSOR WARNEKROS, Head of Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden, Bass
DANISH COUNTESS /DAGMAR /MATRON, Danish Countess doubling as Lili’s sister and as Head Nurse at Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden - Soprano
CHRISTIAN X, King of Denmark, Baritone
SATB Chorus/Ensemble – Individuals also perform various small roles: YOUNG WOMAN AT THE CLINIC, Soprano; a GALLERY GUEST, Baritone; MAJOR FERNANDO PORTA (Gerda’s second husband); LILI’S MOTHER, Contralto; ERNST HARTHERN, (husband of Hélène Allatini), doubling as LILI’S FATHER.
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Director: Krystian Lada
Role of Lili Elbe: Lucia Lucas, trans Heldenbaritone
Role of Gerda Wegener: Vuvu Mpofu
Costume Designer: Bente Rolandsdotter
Set Designer: Marian Nketiah
Lighting Designer: Alexandr Prowalinski
Description
LILI ELBE is an opera in two acts based on the life of Lili Elbe (1882-1931) one of the first persons to undergo gender affirmation surgery. Lili before transition was known as the acclaimed Danish landscape painter Einar Wegener. Lili was happily married to Gerda Wegener (1886-1940), herself an important artist considered the Danish pioneer of Art Deco and a sought-after portraitist.
Synopsis
When the actress Anna Larsen of the Royal Danish Theater, who had just premiered the role of Orpheus in a new play, could not come for the last sitting of her portrait, the centerpiece of a new exhibition, she makes an unusual suggestion; that the artist, Gerda Wegener, ask Lili Elbe, (at that time known as Gerda’s husband, the artist Einar Wegener), to dress up and pose as Anna. At this sitting Lili is brought to a profound self-discovery, never before acknowledged. Like Orpheus compelled to look back at Eurydice, Lili can never again help turning away from her true self.
Lili, despite the support of Gerda, their friends Ernest and Hélène, and Lili’s brother Marius, encounters hostility even from her own sister Dagmar. Finally, through the efforts of Hélène she is introduced to Professor Warnekos who agrees to operate on her at the Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden and help her fully live her life as a woman.
After her first surgery, through a dramatic encounter with the King of Denmark, she receives a royal decree confirming her gender identity and dissolving her marriage to Gerda. As a pioneer of gender affirmation surgery, Lili endures the terrible pains and dangers of the more limited and experimental medical science of her time, ultimately dying from complications after a second surgery.
During this journey both Lili and Gerda find temporary love in different quarters, Lili with the perfumer Claude LeJeune, and Gerda with the Italian Major Fernando Porta who will squander her money and leave her in poverty. Lili and Gerda, together at the end, declare their great and everlasting love for each other, which has never altered.
Press
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"Lili Elbe is an opera that is relevant today and worthy of remounting...even though the titular lead must be sung by an artist who identifies as trans or non-binary, this is the story of a great love that overcomes all obstacles, a universal theme that runs through all the operatic repertoire.
Picker’s opera flows like a delicate work of music theater in two acts that builds towards an emotionally gripping apotheosis of death... Lucas not only makes Lili’s fate her own but allows her own fate to shine through. As directed by Krystian Lada, the narrative unfolds in a straightforward manner as an Art Nouveau-expressionist arc, amidst a bright, symbolist stage."
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“An evening full of nightmares and hopes, with a fearless, always fascinating Lucia Lucas at the center, an iridescent experience, moving in its truthfulness.”
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"A masterwork full of emotions.”
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“With ‘Lili Elbe’ the opera has definitely arrived in the 21st century”
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“Tobias Picker has found a tonal language and a musical narrative that plays with the familiar and thereby develops something new from the musical history we are familiar with - so there are no breaks in listening habits and yet a constant creative output, which - and this is also important - plays an active role in the narrative, instead of mixing a diffuse modern score with the typical diffuse sing-song of singing parts suspended between atonality and tonality the task of telling the story to the text alone and a sensible director. With his music, Picker creates time-spaces and moods that are able to evoke scenes, outline the concrete and the transcendental, almost without any additional hint; But above all, he succeeded in writing characterful vocal parts.”
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"Picker's vocal lines always remain committed to melody, ariosi lead to large scenes with wonderful upswings and dramatic, self-aware arias. The psychedelic-tinged party at the Danish Countess is a bit of irresistible atmospheric musical theater. Modestas Pitrenas and the St.Gallen Symphony Orchestra demonstrate their stylistic versatility with a gripping interpretation of the score... This is great music!"