Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, Modestas Pitrenas, Lucia Lucas, Sylvia D’Eramo - Picker: Lili Elbe (Live) (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

CD1
01. Lili Elbe, Overture (Live)
02. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 1: Royal Danish Theatre, November 1925 (Live)
03. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 2: Next Morning, Wegener Apartment in Copenhagen (Live)
04. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 2: Aria: “I see a woman. A beautiful woman.” (Live)
05. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 2: Solo: violin cadenza (Live)
06. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 3: A Few Evenings Later. Ole Haslund Gallerie (Live)
07. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 4: Next Morning. Wegener Apartment Bedroom (Live)
08. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 5: Paris. Wegener apartment some weeks later (Live)
09. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 6: Paris. A Danish Countess’ Mansion (Live)
10. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 6: Duet: Lili and Claude (Live)
11. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 6: Chorus: “Everything everywhere transformed.” (Live)
12. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 7: Paris. Tuileries Gardens. Wegener Apartment (Live)
13. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 8: Professor Warnekros’ Paris apartment (Live)
14. Lili Elbe, Act I Scene 8: Aria: “I do not know if what he says can really be achieved.” (Live)

CD2
01. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 1: The Recovery Room in the Municipal Women’s Clinic (Live)
02. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 1: Ensemble: “Our Lili has returned from her great journey.” (Live)
03. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 2: Christian X, King of Denmark’s Palace (Live)
04. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 3: Lili’s Mother’s House in Vejle, Jutland (Live)
05. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 4: Paris. Les Deux Magots (Live)
06. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 5: The Women’s Clinic in Dresden, The Garden (Live)
07. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 6: A short while later in the clinic garden (Live)
08. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 6: Aria: “They took my children.” (Live)
09. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 7: Lili’s Hospital Room. Women’s Clinic in Dresden (Live)
10. Lili Elbe, Act II Scene 7: Duet: Lili and Gerda (Live)

Lili Elbe is a two-act opera by Tobias Picker with a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, based on the life of Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the earliest recipients of gender affirmation surgery. Set within the artistic partnership between Lili and her wife Gerda Wegener, the work explores identity, transformation, and enduring love. Recorded by Konzert und Theater St. Gallen this album presents an intimate portrait of courage and self-realization.

ACT I
In the late 1920’s, the actress Anna Larssen of the Royal Danish Theater, having just premiered the role of Orpheus in a new play, could not appear for the last sitting of her portrait, the centerpiece of a new exhibition. Anna makes an unusual suggestion; that the artist, Gerda Wegener, ask Lili Elbe, (at that time known as Gerda’s husband, the artist Einar Wegener), to dress up and pose as Anna. At this sitting Lili is brought to a profound self-discovery, never before acknowledged. Like Orpheus compelled to look back at Eurydice, Lili can never again turn away from the truth of who she is. Despite the support of Gerda, their friends Eric and Hélène, and Lili’s brother Marius, Lili encounters hostility and rejection from her sister Dagmar and later her own mother. Through the efforts of Hélène she is introduced to Professor Warnekros who agrees to operate on her at the Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden.

ACT II
After her first surgery, a dramatic encounter with the King of Denmark leads to an extraordinary decree — Lili is legally recognized as a woman, and her marriage to Gerda is annulled. Despite the seeming loss of their deep relationship, both Lili and Gerda find temporary love in different quarters, Lili with the perfumer Claude LeJeune, and Gerda with the Italian Major Fernando Porta. When Claude LeJeune asks Lili to marry him, Lili delays until she can have surgery to become a mother, which Professor Warnekros says he can make possible. He and the Matron of the clinic choose a young woman to be the experimental uterus donor. Neither Lili nor the Young Woman suspect what is in this plan. Lili, dying from complications of her surgery, writes and thanks the absent Gerda for the flowers she has sent every day from Rome. In return, Gerda sends a final letter. From two distant cities, their voices rise together in a last duet — declaring their love for each other that only grows and never looks back.