Jon Fosse wrote Wakefulness, the first part of his eventual Trilogy, in almost one sitting. He has described it as »the projection of a state, a mood, a sound«. Like the two novellas that followed, it is archetype Fosse: built on repetition and suggestion; mingling past, present and future; fragmentary, elliptical and aloof. All are qualities associated more with the music of Bent Sørensen than with that of any other composer alive.
Sørensen’s partnering with Fosse, who has crafted his own libretto from Trilogy to frame the composer’s new opera Asle & Alida, should be a creative union made in heaven. It has worked – to a point. But it has also fallen short of what it might have been, both in its failure to access the absolute spirit of Trilogy – what Fosse refers to as »the language behind the words« – and in a staging at the Royal Danish Opera (first seen in Bergen in March) that proves crushingly inept in the face of the material.
