Trip to the Kungliga Balette to see Tristan

It always seems to surprise people to some degree that I love ballet. Not that there's anything wrong with that... Perhaps I just give off a strong non-ballet vibe?

In any case, my wonderful wife H knows that I love ballet, so she had tickets to the Kungliga Baletten (Swedish Royal Ballet) waiting for me when I arrived in Stockholm. On Friday 2 Feb. 2007, we went to see Tristan. The music is drawn directly from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, but the overall piece is greatly shortened for ballet. Legs tire more quickly than lungs.

The Operahuset (Opera House) is one of Stockholm's architectural treasures, so I was doubly delighted to go. For the most part, I didn't even try to photograph the building, since I'm certain others have already done the job equipped with better training and a better camera. I did, however, note that H had done a particularly good job of choosing our seats. Notice which section she selected for us:

H raises the Nerdy--er, Nedre--Raden roof.

When I first saw the sign, I thought it couldn't possibly be real. We were going to sit in the Nerd-e (i.e., Nerdy) section!? Well, it wasn't true, because it was the Nedre section after all. It was a silly mistake, too, because while nerd has its own, special meaning in English, its phonetic cousin nedre raden evidently means something quite different in Swedish--something along the lines of, "considerably higher than your average mizzen-mast." At least we had a great view of the chandelier.

How ceiling frescoes see the world.

But I digress. H and I both thought that Act II was far superior to Act I. Indeed, at the very end of the piece, H turned to me and enthused, "J, that was so beautiful!" At first I was touched, since it was obviously the first time H had actually been genuinely moved by a dance performance. Then I was deeply flattered, since, if this was H's first real experience of ballet, she's shown a lot of forbearance by accompanying her nutty husband to so many dance performances from which she's gotten essentially nothing. She's a quite a woman, my wife is.

Though we didn't know it when we arrived at the Operahuset that evening, we were in for a very special episode of the Kungliga Baletten. One of the troop's best and most loyal performers, Göran Svalberg by name, who apparently got his start with the Stockholm more than 20 years ago (1985!), was being fêted by his peers, presumably upon his imminent retirement. (We don’t speak Swedish, so who knows.)

Göran's the man in the skirt up in front--no, no--the other man in a skirt.

Let me emphasize how delighted we were to be able to enjoy a series of appreciative speeches--about someone we'd never heard of--for almost an hour--in Swedish. I used to think that the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show was an unfair (if funny) joke at the Swedes' expense. I can now state with perfect certainty that, for Anglophones at least, Swedish really does start to sound like bork-a-bork-a-bork once you stop trying to understand it and just let the language wash over you.

We did our ambassadorly duty, however, and applauded Mr. Svalberg as I’m sure he deserves. Like H, I thought that Act II of the ballet was moving, so I was delighted to have attended. The cherry on top of our wonderful evening out, however, presented itself in an unexpected form. For reasons which passeth our paltry understanding (and yet tickle our overactive imaginations), the current administration of the Operahuset has installed a large, wavy, steel playground slide right in the middle of the entry's grand stair.

A fireman's pole was discussed, but ultimately dismissed as "lacking in dignity."

Naturally, having in all likelihood paid an unconscionable sum of money to see this deliciously incongruous device installed, the administration then proceeds to rope it off, so that no one can enjoy it. Either they have liability issues (I'll admit this seems the most likely scenario, even though everyone knows that even the clumsy kids can use the slide) or they're saving themselves for that one special night. Either way the whole roping off thing comes off a bit prudish. We almost jumped the rope and slid down, but we have tickets for another ballet in a few weeks, and we didn't want to earn reputations as scuffers of the opera house slide. Perhaps, however, a day or two before we depart...