Column | An unlikely fairy tale and completely true

A goose herder and a king’s son, as soon as you hear that you already know enough: fairytale! And the opera Konigkinder van Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) does indeed tell a fairy tale, albeit not with a happy ending. The music is beautiful and the whole, as it is now performed in the Amsterdam Opera, is enchanting.

Maybe it was because I was just reading Judith Koelemeijer’s compelling biography of Etty Hillesum, but it seemed to me that this fairy tale tells a lot about how people are: both good and not to be trusted.

The goose herder who is called a royal child was very reminiscent of someone like Hillesum, full of faith in the good in man, and determined to help others, even if it means her own downfall. She believed so much in inner freedom, come what may, that she made no effort to save herself.

„Der Tod can’t come” sings the goose herder in a conjuration, while she and the king’s son have neither food nor shelter, and it is bitterly cold.

The king’s son himself is just as powerless against the events as many of Hillesum’s fellow sufferers at the time, and the people in charge are harsh and mean to them, and to anyone who does want to have anything to do with them.

They are otherwise very ordinary people, who are well off, who sing and have a drink and hope to get it even better. But they are sure that everything that goes wrong has to do with those damned royal children.

A fellow villager said, when asylum seekers were received for a week in the church in our village: “They force us to lock everything at night”. Because he was sure: there would be stolen. Life would get worse.

Not a bad man at all.

In the opera you see how people from the city run around excitedly under a beautiful lime tree, there is a big terrace, everyone is dressed in white, the world is cheerful and beautiful and all is well and soon a king is coming! And then comes that naive goose herder with her sweet voice and her desire to get to know the people. haha! That will happen! The two well-meaning ‘king’s children’ are just not lynched, but they are chased away.

“AZC no!”

“Know what you are bringing in!”

Only children see that something unjust is happening, a girl breaks down in tears and sings in a touchingly pure child’s voice: “They really were the king and the queen!” It is reminiscent of that moment in Matthew: “Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes Sohn Gesen”.

After the performance I spoke to an acquaintance who had found it all rather ‘unlikely’. “It’s a fairy tale too,” I said stupidly. But that wasn’t the right answer at all. It wasn’t improbable, even if it was a fairy tale and there were spells and curses and kings’ children.

I was impressed because I seemed to have seen and heard what seemed to me to be the truth broken up into glittering bits, into deceptive fairy tales. The witch is not bad, the woodcutter is not nice, the musician is not a whistle-blower, the prince is not a hero, love is not a rescue. All that would have been improbable.

This was a representation of the world as it is. Dressed up at her best, sounding wonderful, but not necessarily good.