‘Earth Elegies’ – a performance concert at the Glyptotek
The performance will play on 5, 7 and 8 March
The performance will play on 5, 7 and 8 March
The Glyptotek and Kind of Opera present ‘Earth Elegies’ – a new interdisciplinary performance concert based on Sofie Isager Ahl’s poetry collection with music by Katinka Fogh Vindelev and choreography by Marie Topp. The work reinterprets the classic myth of Persephone and equates giving birth with the regeneration of nature. The performance concert is performed by soprano and composer Katinka Fogh Vindelev and 70 singers from the Sankt Annæ Girls’ Choir.
An elegy is a lament that mourns what has been lost. In ‘Earth Elegies’ the song calls for awakening, in a confrontation with our 2000-year-old cultural Christian view that everything is created from above. An attitude that has so greatly influenced our view of nature, disenchanted nature and contributed to inappropriate exploitation of the resources of the Earth.
In ‘Earth Elegies’, the Greek goddess Persephone returns to the Central Hall of the Glyptotek to give birth. Persephone is goddess of the underworld and daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest. Like the regeneration of crops, her birth is a long one: we follow her labor of birth over nine months together with a choir of young girls who work in the fields and struggle, while night frosts, drought and dust storms threaten the harvest, before the laments are finally released in a proclamation of spring and life.
In Sofie Isager Ahl's new poetry collection, Persephone is recalled as an image of what sprouts through the darkness of the Earth. Labor is not a moment, but a work. The choir of young voices moves like rolling fields through the hall, and the song holds back the world for a moment. In this musical staging at the Glyptotek, Sofie Isager Ahl's words are given body and sound through Katinka Fogh Vindelev's composition. The choreography, created by Marie Topp, allows the body to experience what the voice sings about: exhaustion, endurance and transformation. Slowness does not become stillness, but movement in deep time.
With 70 singers from the Sankt Annæ Girls' Choir, strings and soprano Katinka Fogh Vindelev herself, the work unfolds as a sensual ritual about birth, care and regeneration. The audience enters a choreographic staging where time is stretched, voices move through space, and the body becomes the carrier of the story.
The performance concert at the Glyptotek is based on Sofie Isager Ahl's poetry collection 'Earth Elegies’, which will be published on February 27, 2026 by Forlaget Virkelig. The poems revolve around loss, regeneration and care for the living. Book release on March 5 after the performance.
The performance will play on March 5 at 6.30 pm Premiere. SOLD OUT March 7 at 3.00 pm with artist talk March 8 at 3.00 pm
Season Ticket holder: DKK 200 Adult: DKK 250 Under 27/students with a valid student card: DKK 200 Under 18: DKK 150
It is a sit-down performance with free seating. Tickets give access to the entire museum on the day. Tickets are non-refundable but may be passed on.
The performance takes place in the Glyptotek's Central Hall. One hour before each performance, the guides of the Glyptotek will introduce the myths of Persephone and Demeter. Meeting point at the information next to the Winter Garden.
Buy a season ticket and get discounts on many other events as well as in the museum shop and café. Read more and buy a season ticket here.
Practical For information about wheelchair accessibility, companionship arrangements, etc., read more here.
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In the café Picnic you can have a lovely dinner or enjoy a drink. Read more about the menu and table reservations here.
Photo by Antje Taiga Jandrig.
Katinka Fogh Vindelev, composer, soprano and performer Sofie Isager Ahl, author Marie Topp, choreographer Karin Gille, scenographer Copenhagen Girls’ Choir under the direction of conductor Anne-Terese Sales Trine Heide, producer Produced by Kind of Opera
‘Earth Elegies’ is supported by The Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, Axel Muusfeldt’s Foundation, William Demant Foundation, Danish Musicians' Association, Danish Artists' Association, Danish Composers' Association.
Katinka and Sofie met in the fall of 2020 in connection with Katinka's audience-engaging choral work Gravitational Shift (2019-2022), which is based on women's birth cries, stretched in time and thereby made singable for mixed voices with different musical skills and backgrounds.
At the same time, Sofie was working on her PhD on new agricultural movements. Her research centered on mutually healing practices, which culminated in publication of the book Regeneration in 2023, published by the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology.
During the same period, Marie Topp worked in her practice with choreographic temporalities, including cyclical perception of time, rebirth and moments in the work Maze.
Karin Gille is centered around the visually symbolic and strongly sensual in her works, as well as a desire to create resonance between the visual and auditory space.
Through concerts, opera, signature events and interactive formats, Kind of Opera explores how classical music can find a vibrant place in the contemporary world. Based on the team's shared interests, lamentation and hope are therefore treated multidimensionally through a modern music-dramatic and artistic expression.