Tivoli, the inspiration of Walt Disney

COPENHAGEN, Denmark— Today, I participated in the 67th Fellowship celebration of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), hosted by Her Royal Highness, Queen Margrethe of Denmark. As board member of WAGGGS, Philippines, I will have the privilege of joining board members from all over the world who are all billeted in Radisson Blu, Hotel Alexandra and Cabinn City Hotel around the famous Tivoli Park of Copenhagen. This was the original theme park that charmed and obsessed Walt Disney before. Eventually he created Disneyland.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

When Danny Kaye, the actor comedian, played the role of the gangling Hans Christian Andersen, the bouncy song Wonderful Copenhagen rocketed across the globe and brought visitors by the planeload and boatload to this scintillating town, the “doughty old Queen of the Sea” to enjoy the “tavern light” and the “merry nights.”

One bright spot often unfortunately missed by tourists is Tivoli, a 20-hectare amusement park laid outside the city wall in 1845 by Georg Carstensen. It is today within the center of the much expanded city, bordered by Avenue and Vasterbrogade Avenue whose intersection is the city plaza.

The giant statue of Hans Christian Andersen sits by the Avenue as if he is narrating his never-ending tales of 176 titles, which include the Little Mermaid, whose graceful three-foot metal statue still sits by the rock on the city coastline watching for her prince. But most of Andersen’s characters in his stories like the Princess and the Pea, the Tin Soldiers, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Thumbelina, etc. All come alive a block away at the fairyland of Tivoli Gardens.

That is why the great weaver of tales referred to Mr. Carstensen as a genius. Although he was able to persuade King Christian IV to allow him to lay out the amusement park on an old military fortification, the Danish press and town literati ridiculed his ideas. Nonetheless, he insisted “If only people are allowed to amuse themselves, they will forget to talk politics.” The Tivoli Gardens stays open from 10 a.m. to midnight, only between May to mid-September, just four and a half months in the year.

Tivoli, if only we could have one

Let me recall my 1994 visit to Tivoli with my husband Max and daughter Sara. The handsome doormen of Tivoli in their gold-buttoned suits with black, red lapels open the gates promptly at 10 a.m. The children’s theater, its pink façade, all covered with dolls, offers one all of 11 shows and rides made for the very young. By 1:30 p.m., 25 rides, galleries and shops open for the older ones; by 3 p.m., the well-dressed senior citizens usually would gather around the elegant open-air band stands and jazz house.

For 38 Kroners, about $6 (now at 99 Kroners, or $18), one can enjoy the spell-binding atmosphere, day or night, of Tivoli. There are four open air band stands, playing classic and jazz music, and theaters including the Pantomime Theater where the blue-green giant peacock curtain opens her tails to reveal the Italian Harlequin and Columbine. The French clown Pierrot specially brings the house down, cheered on by the children in the audience.

The Tivoli Guards, not older than 16

By 3:30 p.m., the Tivoli Guards, nine to 16 years old trained musicians, mostly children and grandchildren of former Tivoli Guards, present the welcome parade. The 40 members of the leading band consist of very young drummers and piccolo flute boys in red suits with gold buttons and tall black hats, and a golden carriage with two small horses follow.

The “smallest princess and prince” of the world wave to everyone. The Captain, on a large white horse, sees to the order of this entourage. At the rear, 14 guards in marine blue with three old cannons follow. Mostly blonde and blue-eyed, they look serious and are exemplary in their disciplined performance.

  By this time, the huge semi-circular Taj Mahal complex lights up. The elaborate silhouette lights up in red, yellow and green bulbs. The giant glass dragonfly fountain bubbles up with multi-colored lights making the Indian palace, which houses several stores and restaurants, breathtaking. The whole place is incredibly and artfully landscaped.

The Japanese waiter in the Chinese restaurant

Twenty-five restaurants are simultaneously busy in all their elegance and unfading beauty. It was Max’s birthday then. Where else could we celebrate it, if not in happy Tivoli. The French eateries like Belle Terasse, the Balkonen, Fregatten George 3, Divan I and Divan II (for the international menu and more special gourmet) as well as the Intermezzo, Italia, and the Danish restaurants Palatten, Perlen, and Promenaden all complete with their excellent and expensive cuisine served in a unique Hollywood-style ambience. Their silhouettes are equally ablaze in lights.

I caution, though, the Filipino visitors who may hunger for Chinese food not to seek this in the Tivoli’s Chinese Kinesiske Torn palace restaurant, whose beckoning pagoda spires and lagoon with the romantic boats may surely tempt them as they were. The sweet and sour pork as well as the beef and sweet peas were rather tasteless, but the Japanese waiter, Danish and Pakistani cooks were friendly.

Meantime, charming kiosks selling cheaper sandwiches and drinks are as plentiful. The romantically-tucked benches and winding walks are bordered by unusual exciting lamps and bouquets of blossoms, all real and incredibly profuse. They would frame ingeniously the many rides like the spider cobweb roller coaster rides or the ladybug roller coaster for the smaller children.

John Mario Sevilla of the Pilobolus Dance Company

During my last visit there in 1994, we caught the last show of the season at the Tivoli. Theater, performed by the Pilobolus Dance Company. Coming all the way from Connecticut, these six American dancers had no props except their music, lights and their flexible bodies. In body stockings, their seemingly naked bodies really looked like golden human balls rolling in all directions against the black floor. In the next, dance Animundi, two dancers looked like rainbow colored frogs, monkeys and later, serpents.

In the last number, Day Two, all six dancers interpreted Creation as sunlit bodies rising up from a dark stage. I noted one male dancer looking Filipino. He had a Filipino name in the program. John Mario Sevilla. Yes, he is Filipino, confirmed the American stage crew manager. He was born in Hawaii, but both his parents are Filipinos. This theater company which started at Dartmouth College, Connecticut has been awarded several times in the major cities of Europe and Asia.

We joined the audience in the successive hearty applauses. They received nine curtain calls. In the last four, each one either swam, slid or streaked through a film of water on the black plastic floor with such lightning precision.

The fascinating mini shows

How can I describe so many other fascinating experiences and sights like the mini jar maker who tells his story dramatically while he turns his mini potter wheel inside his glass kiosk? Or the Mice Town, where a hundred while mice perpetually mill around the city hall, fire station, the supermarket, etc.? Tivoli must ultimately be visited, for unlike Disneyland, it cannot be duplicated.