Caroline Mathilde is a two-act ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 to music by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

. Its original choreographer was Flemming Flindt

Flemming Flindt

Flemming Flindt was a Danish choreographer born in Copenhagen. He studied at the Royal Danish Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet schools, joined the Royal Danish Ballet and was promoted to soloist in 1955...

.

It tells the story of the eighteenth century English princess

Princess

Princess is the feminine form of prince . Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or his daughters....

 Caroline Mathilde (sister of George III) who was sent to Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 aged 15 to be married to the 17-year-old schizophrenic Danish King, Christian VII. The ballet portrays her unhappy marriage, the King's growing madness and her fatal love-affair with Struensee, the King's influential physician, which ultimately leads to their arrest, his execution and her exile, at the age of 20, separated from her two young children.

As with Davies' earlier ballet, Salome, it was a commission by the Royal Danish Ballet

Royal Danish Ballet

The Royal Danish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, it originates from 1748, when the Royal Danish Theatre was founded, and was finally organized in 1771 in response to the great popularity of French and Italian styles of dance...

. It was first performed on 14 March 1991, at the Kongelige Theater, Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. The orchestra was conducted by Markus Lehtinen.

Davies prepared two Concert Suites, each based on an act of the ballet.