CrowdMateFor the Thursday–Sunday stretch of September 24–27, Operaen (Royal Danish Opera House) contains a particularly useful two-day route through classical music’s different sizes. Friday night brings a concert built for the Main Stage: Ingo Metzmacher conducts a programme reaching from Sibelius through Carl Nielsen to Dmitri Shostakovich. Saturday morning shifts into the foyer for Papageno og Papagena – en PixiOpera, a 40-minute, child-focused work using music from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The pairing gives the building a compact weekend portrait: a full orchestral evening on September 25, followed by two family performances on September 26. Both formats have a strong sense of place, because the Royal Danish Theatre presents the Friday concert in the main auditorium and the PixiOpera amid the everyday circulation of its foyer.[1][2]
Friday’s long orchestral line
Metzmacher, Nielsen and Shostakovich begins at 19:30 on Friday, September 25. The programme opens with Sibelius’s En saga, then marks the centenary of Carl Nielsen’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. Joachim Becerra Thomsen, principal flute of the Royal Danish Orchestra and the current DR P2 Artist of the Year, takes the solo role. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 closes the evening, creating a concert whose route is legible on paper: Finnish tone poem, a Danish concerto rooted in the Royal Danish Orchestra’s history, then a twentieth-century symphony of enormous emotional and physical range. The Royal Danish Theatre lists the complete event at two hours including an interval, so this is the evening to reserve for a single destination.[1]
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Metzmacher’s fit with the programme
Ingo Metzmacher’s arrival provides a useful point of focus within that broad programme. His official biography describes a career across opera houses, major orchestras and festival leadership, with recurring work in twentieth- and twenty-first-century music. That background gives particular context to a bill that places Nielsen’s late flute concerto beside Shostakovich’s Tenth, while still opening with Sibelius. The Royal Danish Theatre also frames this as Metzmacher’s first time conducting on the Operaen Main Stage. For listeners choosing one major classical event next week, the appeal lies in hearing three distinct orchestral worlds connected by a conductor whose public work has often treated programming itself as part of the musical argument.[1][3]
Saturday morning in the foyer
At 10:30 and 12:30 on Saturday, September 26, Papageno og Papagena – en PixiOpera offers the opposite scale. The Royal Danish Theatre describes it as a playful introduction to opera for children, recommended from age four, shaped around Papageno and Papagena from The Magic Flute. The production uses musical excerpts from Mozart’s opera with new text, and its 40-minute length makes it a manageable first encounter with sung theatre. Frederik Rolin appears as Papageno, Julie Meera Lindberg as Papagena, and Kristoffer Hyldig plays piano. The foyer setting matters here: seating is allocated across chairs, stairs and cushions, giving the morning a looser, closer arrangement than the previous evening’s Main Stage concert.[2]
Planning the two-day Operaen visit
For Friday, arrive for the 19:30 start and allow for the listed interval. The Saturday PixiOpera times are 10:30 and 12:30; the official page currently lists both candidate performances as sold out, so families should check the theatre’s own page for returns, waiting-list options or any update before travelling. Operaen advises that foyer admission opens 30 minutes before each PixiOpera and closes 15 minutes after it. Recheck the official Royal Danish Theatre pages for availability, access arrangements and transport details, since those practical details can change.[1][2]
Sources
- Metzmacher, Nielsen and Shostakovich — The Royal Danish Theatre
- Papageno og Papagena - en PixiOpera — Det Kongelige Teater
- Ingo Metzmacher | Biography — Ingo Metzmacher