Den Sidste Olie (The Last Rites) is a groundbreaking chamber opera by Niels Rønsholdt, intricately woven into the tonal tapestry of the Baroque. This innovative work navigates the historical odyssey of oil extraction, from its inception to the unyielding realities of the climate crisis we face today. Set against the backdrop of the Danish 1721 colonization of Greenland, Rønsholdt crafts a captivating narrative about the relentless global pursuit of progress and prosperity.
Den Sidste Olie is released as a digital album by Dacapo Records.
Read more, listen or buy the album here.
The search for oil
Den Sidste Olie takes place in 1721, the year of Denmark's colonization of Greenland, starting in a dark and cold Copenhagen, where the lamp oil has run out. We meet the opera's four characters, The Ideals, Power, Cynicism and Skepticism, which are inspired by the Holberg comedies of that time.
The four characters decide to set sail towards the north in the search for whale oil, and when they fail, the Ideals have an epiphany: The Earth itself is a big whale swimming around in the universe full of oil, right there for us to take! But the moment the oil spills out of the ground, their community falls apart.
Endless pursuit with disastrous consequences
Rønsholdt himself calls the chamber opera a "tragicomic story" and "a pessimistic satire of human nature" and with the work, he addresses some of the great challenges in society.
The opera unfolds the theme of eternal over-exploitation of natural resources, territories and fellow human beings in the pursuit of progress and prosperity, which is rooted in the Enlightenment-era Europe. Rønsholdt wishes to comment on how ressource exploitation has pushed our planet to its limits, leading to the climate changes we are facing today.
"The starting point is the search for what we need, but in that drive lies also destruction, because we become greedy and take advantage of each other along the way. We are used to looking back on the Enlightenment as something positive, but it included the idea of growth, expansion and supremacy, the disastrous consequences of which we see today", Niels Rønsholdt explains.
Baroque opera with contemporary tonal idiom
The opera was premiered in 2022 in a ice skating rink in Copenhagen. The audience was dressed in winter clothes, sitting in near-complete darkness on the ice in a large circle around the performers, creating a literally bone-chilling experience.
Musically, the work unfolds in the form of a Baroque opera, combined with Rønsholdt's innovative and contemporary touch. An example is the way text and music is unfolded in a bizarre spiral of repeated words and syllables, slowing down the progression of the narrative.
The opera is written for four singers and chamber ensemble and is recorded by soprano Katinka Fogh Vindelev, countertenor Morten Grove Frandsen, mezzo-soprano Nana Bugge Rasmussen, barytone Richard Låås, Athelas Sinfonietta as well as pianist and composer James Sherlock.