Caleb Mayo and Bobbie Steinbach in Peer Gynt. Photo by Robert Torres.
SLSO presents: Peer Gynt: An Epic Tale | 05.03.25 @ 7:30pm; 05.04.25 @ 3:00pm | Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St | All ages | $28-$100+
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s (SLSO) 2024-2025 season continues this weekend with two performances of writer and composer Bill Barclay’s adaptation of the epic Norwegian poem Peer Gynt. Written in 1867 by vaunted dramatist Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt is one of the most widely performed works of Norwegian drama. A tale heavily rooted in Norse folklore and mythology, Peer Gynt follows the life of its titular character, a loutish poet living a life of excess in the countryside, as he embarks on a globe-trotting quest to earn back the family fortune his father squandered. His fantastical journey takes many detours, including an audience with the king of trolls, a detour in a mental institution near the Great Sphinx of Giza, and a debate with the devil himself. The play is a satirical work lampooning the Norwegian cultural preoccupation with individualism and self-sufficiency, as Peer grows to realize that his arrogance has caused him to live his life more as a troll—self-centered and wealth-obsessed—than as a human.
In 1876, Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, one of the great figures of Scandinavian classical music, wrote a score to accompany Ibsen’s play. The score contains 26 movements, each of which accompanies a scene across the play’s five acts. Grieg’s score is an iconic work which many readers are likely familiar with through cultural osmosis, with two pieces in particular being the most recognizable: the booming “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” which is performed in the second act during Peer Gynt’s adventures in the trolls’ subterranean royal palace; and “Morning Mood,” a transcendental piece in the fourth act depicting a sunrise in the Moroccan desert. These two pieces in particular have been referenced and parodied countless times in popular culture. (I would not be doing my due diligence as a Simpsons fanatic if I did not mention the scene in “Bart Carny” which memorably uses “Morning Mood.”)
The upcoming performances of Peer Gynt at the Stifel are part of a travelling production directed by composer Bill Barclay, noted for his work as the Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London. Barclay’s adaptation is a fully staged performance, featuring orchestra, actors, sets, and even puppetry. Ibsen’s original play is often performed by theater companies without Grieg’s score, and Grieg’s score is often performed by orchestras without Ibsen’s play: Barclay’s adaptation is notable for its merging of the two works into a seamless adaptation, which celebrates the legacies of both authors.
“No one today would dare to do Ibsen and Grieg together the way the play first premiered,” said Barclay in an interview with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 2023. “Ibsen’s story is febrile, long, massively unedited. It would take nearly five hours and require forces that no theatre would support. Our version, on the other hand, fits on the second half of a concert program…
“I call this ‘concert-theatre,’ because we put music and theatre on equal footing. Here, the actors retreat when the music is front and center, and when the orchestra slips into incidental music the actors enter and color the story in real time…I think it’s possible to recreate the incredible collaboration between these two titanic figures, using as much of the original material as possible, but distilled and reshaped to fit our needs in the concert hall today.”
Fans of Ibsen’s play, Grieg’s score, and of actors in troll costumes will not want to miss this production during its St. Louis run, with performances this Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon at the beautiful Stifel Theatre. SLSO director Stéphane Denève will conduct the orchestra, which will include performances by Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling (in the role of Solveig) and Norwegian violinist Vidar Skrede, who are travelling with Barclay’s production. | David von Nordheim
