Short Stories V

Opera is more than classics and big productions. With Short Stories, the Royal Swedish Opera introduces new, 20-minute works sung in Swedish in an intimate setting. This time in the form of three stories about love and drama: Stefan Klaverdal’s Wild Bird (Vildfågel), David Saulesco’s The Loving Mother (Den ömma modern), and Ylva Fred’s meta opera The Rehearsal (Repetitionen).

Wild Bird is set in the 1940s. It is the story of Loulou Forsell, author and daughter of John Forsell, famed opera singer and general director of the Royal Swedish Opera. She is admitted to a psychiatric hospital from which she is determined to escape. The Loving Mother is about a worried new mother. She is consumed by dark thoughts about the child. No one seems to listen, and soon disaster strikes. The Rehearsal is the story of two opera singers who are about to rehearse a love scene. What their exasperated director does not know is that they are real lovers.