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Queen Margrethe to design set for ballet at Copenhagen Tivoli

Queen Margrethe may have abdicated as Denmark's monarch but she hasn't given up her side job as a set designer, returning to the role for a performance of Hans Christian Andersen's Blockhead Hans this summer.

Published: 11 March 2024 15:30 CET
Queen Margrethe to design set for ballet at Copenhagen Tivoli
Denmark's Queen Margrethe shows off an earlier set she designed for Tivoli's Pantomime theatre back in 2005. Photo: Linda Kastrup/Ritzau Scanpix

A ballet baseed on the popular fairy tale, called Klods-Hans in Danish, will be performed this summer in the Pantomine Theatre at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park, which celebrates its 150th year in 2024. 

“There are so many possibilities in the fairy tale about Blockhead Hans, who is a person you can’t help but like, and that gives us many possibilities on stage,” Margrethe said in the press release issued by Tivoli. 

Queen Margrethe has previously designed the sets for six performances at the Pantomime Theater, including those for “Cinderella”, “The Tinder Box” and “The Swineheard”, all stories by Hans Christian Andersen. 

Margrethe has also helped to create the two critically acclaimed ballets at Tivoli’s Concert Hall, “The Nutcracker” and “The Snow Queen”, where she has created more than 100 costumes and numerous stage images.

“I have tried to make performances for the Pantomime Theater before and have a good feeling for what works well on the small stage. I am looking forward to getting started with that together with the other forces behind the show,” she said. 

Tobias Praetorius, choreographer and soloist at the Royal Ballet, is behind the choreography for the ballet performance. Conductor and TV host Phillip Faber has written the music.

“It has been exciting work to make the orchestra’s sound merge with Andersen’s story, Tobias’ thoughts and choreography and Queen Margrethe’s visual universe,” Faber said in the announcement.

Blockhead Hans will be performed approximately 30 times in Tivoli over the summer, with the premiere on June 22nd.

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CULTURE

Rare Danish coin collection up for auction after 100 years

Like Sleeping Beauty cursed to sleep for 100 years, a Danish coin collection decreed to be kept off the market for a century will finally go under the hammer late this year.

Published: 17 May 2024 15:26 CEST
Rare Danish coin collection up for auction after 100 years

Denmark’s National Museum, exercising its right to first dibs, paid one million euros ($1.09 million) for seven of the collection’s around 20,000 coins.

“The quality is extraordinary. The collection has become a thing of legend. It’s like the princess had been sleeping for 100 years,” Helle Horsnæs, head of the National Museum’s coin and medallion collection, told AFP.

In 1922, Lars Emil Bruun, a Danish entrepreneur and coin expert, bought the collection from the aristocratic Bille-Brahe family, agreeing to respect the National Museum’s pre-emptive right to the collection.

He died the following year, adding in his will a condition to the sale of the collection.

“The story goes that Bruun, after having seen the devastation of the First World War, was very afraid that something would happen to the (museum’s) national collection,” Horsnaes said.

“And therefore he made a will, saying that his collection should be kept as a reserve for the national collection for 100 years after his death,” she added.

Kept hidden away in a secret location for 100 years, a board of trustees handed the collection over to his heirs on November 21, 2023.

It is estimated to be worth $72.5 million.

“People have been talking about it and talking about what will happen now when it is released,” Horsnæs said. “It has taken on a special history of its own.”

The seven pieces acquired by the museum date from the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries.

The rest will be sold by the Stack’s Bowers auction house in the autumn.

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