Would we had been there
in Norway at the Christiania theater
over a century ago as its curtain rose
on Ibsen’s poetic drama Peer Gynt,
accompanied by Grieg’s monumental score.
Henrik’s script borrows sagas of Nordic lore;
Edvard’s soaring songs mirror many moods:
sad mother Ase scolds,
mischievous recalcitrant Peer
roams mountain troll territory,
finds love and anger in Hall of Mountain King,
escapes to sail afar to exotic Egyptian lands.
Scene-change on stage needs leaps of credibility.
Yet skeptic patrons suffer magic seduction
by music, costumes, theatrical illusion.
Peer teases dying mother with story-within-story.
Sweet and low dirge music blesses Ase’s Death.
Grieg strings support, intensify, transfigure
fear, adventure, and danger in Ibsen’s drama
Peer Gynt, the legend, grows --
its creators join the pantheon.
Some today might read the translated text
but more may hear that haunting mood music
filtered through radio, records, recitals.
We sons and daughters of that same land,
can we inherit the same emotion,
the same Nordic story skills,
the same soulful melodies?
Our Norse forebears leave behind troll tales,
hoary peaks and dipping dales;
they sail out on fjords from their yesterdays
to our tomorrows.
by Robert E. A. Lee for Chris Lee-Thompson on his birthday
