Director Christian Lollike and composer Steingrímur Rohloff are behind this year’s Melodrama, which is based on one of the most famous sacrifice stories in world history: the story of God testing Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his son. It is a story that appears in both the Bible and the Quran. In the Bible, it is Isaac who must be sacrificed. In the Quran, it is Ismail. Same story, two different versions. In Christian Lollike’s interpretation, the two brothers now stand face to face and try to find the truth about their shared past.
Melodrama is a total symphonic experience on stage and screen. A story that is told by actors, a symphony orchestra, singers and live drawings. In short: Concert, theater and film in one experience.
The music consists of Igor Stravinsky’s grandiose masterpiece Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), whose two legendary movements are surrounded by a newly written work in three movements by the renowned Icelandic-German composer Steingrímur Rohloff, whose works have been performed in more than 25 countries worldwide.
The award-winning artist Halfdan Pisket, known for his expressionistic, gloomy motifs in, among others, The Danes trilogy, creates new drawings for the performance, which the set design collective Vertigo projects and animates on large screens in the concert hall; a living, visual universe around the orchestra.
On stage, we will – in addition to Copenhagen Phil – experience Simon Bennebjerg and Zaki Youssef in the roles of Isak and Ismael, and sopranos Sine Bundgaard and Laura Helene Hansen as their mothers, Hagar and Sara.
Copenhagen Phil
Conductor / Geoffrey Paterson
Actors / Simon Bennebjerg / Zaki Youssef
Singers / Sine Bundgaard, soprano / Laura Helene Hansen, soprano
Director and screenplay / Christian Lollike
Steingrimur Rohloff / Tribute 1-3 (premiere)
Stravinsky / Le Sacre du Printemps, The Sacrifice of Spring
Dramatist / Anders Thrue Djurslev
Drawings / Halfdan Pisket
Video scenography / Vertigo
Performances 22 and 23 October 2026 in Copenhagen. Don’t miss it!
Melodrama #3 / Sacre: Det Første Offer – Copenhagen Phil
Photo: Ida Buss