They have created a new national masterpiece
This review was published in Helgelands Blad on 10 September 2018.
National. Though, new masterpiece?
The lyrics are the same old, and the melodies are the almost indestructible, fantastic folk tunes. And Bodø Cathedral already has the church play «Herr Petters Lovsang».
But Alf Knutsen and Knut Størdal have nevertheless found a new form, which in format and ambition deserves to become a national reference for dramatization of Petter Dass. Nordland Teater shows once again that they make theater that you jump on skis on a big hill; fearless in the approach, stylish in the air, and precise impact.
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This performance should be played in Nidaros Cathedral.
Fantastic music. The recurring and supporting element in the performance is Knut Størdal’s exceptionally beautiful arrangements. He makes ten musicians sound like a symphony orchestra, and four professional singers in the interaction with local choir sounds as if they were twice as many. The singers are placed around the room, to increase the sound effect.
And the audience is invited to join the song.
Several of the most used melodies for Petter Dass lyrics are included, largely folk tunes from Nordland. The melodies are performed so effortlessly singable that one starts to think that this should have been wasted on the radio between all the list pop. Another characteristic that an unusually good organizer has been on the move.
Portrait. The program booklet is a bit hovering about the purpose of the performance. To the audience, however, appears quite simply and clearly as a portrait of the poet chief, his person and his contemporaries, based on the most important of all historical sources; the poetry itself.
The performance starts with Petter Dass and his wife Margrethe being welcomed ashore at Alstahaug for the first time. Between the songs we get small episodes that illustrate life on Alstahaug in the years around 1700.
A frame story in the performance is the story of the poor girl (played by Ingrid Steinholt Mortensen from Sandnessjøen) and the boy Jens. They become pregnant, but still married by Petter Dass, who himself was in a similar “situation” with his future wife, Margrethe.
A dramatic highlight in the performance is the shipwreck of Jekta, where Petter in his helplessness invokes higher powers, and the true devil with the black book, while the storm rages around the house walls at Alstahaug. Petter had insisted that Jens join the yacht to Bergen. Jekta sinks and Jens disappears at sea, a child loses his father. Petter Dass is plagued by guilt.
Some of the text is taken straight out of Nordland’s Trumpet. Other elements in the performance are based on tales such as the Christmas day sermon in Copenhagen. Weddings and christenings are celebrated. During the banquet in the living room at Alstahaug, “rai, rai” (free after DDE) is sung.
Brilliant lead role. Hans-Erik Dyvik Husby is absolutely brilliant in the lead role. We wonder who could have done this better. The rocker plays on a broad natural register of expressions, a little rusty in his voice, «furrowed weather bite» as he actually is. Humor, roaring rage, but also a vár vulnerability characterizes the portrayal of Petter Dass. In the role, he speaks a broad dialect, which he came from Blomsøy or Øksningan.
A key scene in the portrait of Petter Dass is where the poet sits at the desk and struggles with his rhymes. He marvels at the Caucasian “Holy be your name,” which the state church continues to use to this day. With the poet chief, this is translated into “Lord God Your Precious Name and Glory,” the opening stanza of the national anthem.
The performance comments on the current myth formation that Petter Dass was naughty. The scene shows that Petter Dass was first and foremost an enlightener of the people, with a great urge and ability to convey to unenlightened buildings, a true son of the Reformation, a rebel against the power structure of the time. Literary scholars today believe that the poet’s use of dialect words may be a reason why the people of the time opposed publishing Petter’s poems while he was alive, despite popular popularity.
Movie next. In the thematic circle about what should create this cultural hurricane from Alstahaug, in a time that literally lay in a spiritual darkness, there is a rich material that should be able to turn into a juicy film script.
– So, Alf! You who know people in Hollywood!
Morten Hofstad