Grout is faintly dismissive of Kung Karls Jakt in his Short History of Opera (London: 1947): ''sometimes called the first Finnish opera, it was by a German-born composer and to a Swedish text''. All the same, Fredrik Pacius (1809-91) is regarded as the father of Finnish music, through his work at Helsinki University and in the musical life of the Finnish musical capital. He is after all the composer of the national anthem, Vart Land. Soon after he settled in Finland, he staged his teacher, Spohr's Die letzen Dinge and Vater Unser, introduced Handel's Messiah and Mendelssohn's St Paul and brought a small provincial backwater into contact with wider musical horizons.
Opera remained primarily an amateur activity in Helsinki and it was under relatively primitive conditions that Kung Karls Jakt was first produced in 1851. The text is by Zachrias Topelius, a poet whom Sibelius admired and set, and the plot is eminently simple and straightforward, though the poetry is of quality. The story tells of the visit of the 16-year-old Swedish king, Charles XI, to the Aland Islands in 1671 to hunt elk, which only he is permitted to do. A plot by the King's confidant Gyllenstjerna to usurp the throne is brewing but as the First Act ends a shot rings out: someone other than the king has shot the forbidden elk. This turns out to be the fiance of Leonora, a fisherman's daughter who has saved the king's life on an earlier visit. All ends well on this occasion too; the coup is foiled by Leonora, her fiance pardoned and Gyllenstjerna sent into exile.
To be frank, the music is pretty simple too. Pacius revised it no fewer than four times, the last time as late as 1880. Although it was staged (in its second revision) at the Royal Opera in Stockholm in 1856, Pacius was unable to interest opera houses in Hamburg and Copenhagen—and one can understand why. The work lacks the freshness and charm of Hartman's Liden Kirsti, which does have some memorable ideas, or the flair and dramatic pace of Heise's Drot og Marsk; nor can one discern a sufficiently distinctive musical personality. The performance recorded here has a distinguished cast and a lot of dedication has gone into the musical preparation under Ulf Soderblom as well as the recording. But musically Kung Karls Jakt remains something of a footnote in operatic history rather than a newly-recovered masterpiece that deserves wider attention.
There are extensive background essays and useful documentation provided, which fill in the importance of the work in Finnish cultural history.'