Home   >   Culture & Music   >   The autumn’s cultural event takes place in the Royal Opera

The autumn’s cultural event takes place in the Royal Opera

By on September 25, 2018

“Let the futuristic fantasies of the ninth circle of feminism come from Angela Carter’s pencil,” wrote a British critic of “The New Eve’s Passion”, an erotic pikaresk from 1977. Now, Carter’s classic for the first time becomes a opera, and it takes place at the Royal Opera in Stockholm! The newly written opera “Tristessa”, visualized by Ann Sofi Sidén’s films and projections, is performed in English with Swedish text translation. The first performance will take place at the Royal Opera on October 6th.

Feminism, fantasy and prehistory – all and more – featured in the future “Tristessa”, created by composer Jonas S Bohlin, who also stands for libretto in collaboration with the author Torbjörn Elensky. For the visual design of this screwed classic stands Ann-Sofi Sidén, a long-time highly appreciated artist in the international art scene, has had several major solo exhibitions in London, Paris and Vienna in recent years.

In Tristessa Ann-Sofi Sidén visualizes an absurd, freaked out world where projections dominate in a digital scenography.

Why then opera? What is it that attracted you?
“The Opera is the mother of the performing arts and the opportunity to work with the adaptation of such a special novel to libretto and complete stage work. It’s incredibly exciting that on the opera scene and with all of the Opera’s resources, you can combine moving images and classic scenography elements,” says Ann-Sofi Sidén.

The idea of “Tristessa” comes from Torbjörn Elensky. He has read the books of Angela Carters (1940-1992) and wrote the first Swedish edition of this literary version of this new bold operas, “The Passion of New Eve”. Timed with the Royal Opera’s first performance, the book will be published in autumn in a Swedish version of the Modernista publishing house.

As Elensky states in his preface, the book behind “Tristessa” is a society’s satire that “stretches far beyond the United States borders and questions everything we take for granted about gender, sex and desire”. Elensky stuck because the story was so grateful to make the opera of, with extreme people, exaggerated situations as well as magical realism. Jonas S Bohlin also thinks that this drama fits extremely well as opera, with its strong and touching expression.

First performance: Saturday 6 October
Costume Event + Dress rehearsal: Thursday 4 October
Duration: Approx 1 h 55 min incl. pause
More information: operan.se.

Helena Olofsson, Culture & Music | Stockholm
MyGuide2Stockholm