Nørgård/Gebhardt/Jost/Kubach/Lu/Stadttheater Bern/Keilhack: Der Göttliche Tivoli

Per Nørgård's third opera Der Göttliche Tivoli (The Divine Circus) is arguably his best known stage work, though ­perhaps more by reputation than performances, which have remained few since the 1983 premiere. This vivid recording is taken from a production at the Stadttheater Bern in 2008. The subject is the life and work of the Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), who spent the last 35 years of his life in an asylum, and whose ­hallucinatory paintings and writings were a major influence on Nørgård's music from the late 1970s on. The ­opera is an attempt to recreate Wölfli's world and the flavour of his writings and imagery; dramatically it's a powerfully effective piece, with a text compiled by the composer from a range of sources, and the largely declamatory vocal writing underpinned mostly by a formidable battery of percussion. There is enough in the music, and in the allusive visual and literary layers around it, to ­suggest it would have a real theatrical presence.