A Night at the Opera!

We got tickets for the Opera, a 10 minute walk from our apartment in the center of town. I went with my roommates (or they call them flatmates here) Denny and Anna.

It was Anna's birthday! She turned 23. She says she normally hates her birthday, but as I am an avid believer in celebrating most holidays, I just wasn't having that. We got Opera tickets, which she loves, and we put on our finest for a lovely night of extravagance.

The opera was called Jolanta, which is a Tchaikovsky original, about a blind princess, Princess Jolanta, who has never been told that she is blind. The whole palace is under strict orders from the King to never tell her that she is different.

However, when one young man sneaks into the palace without permission, he inadvertently discovers a paradise and the love of his life - Princess Jolanta. He tells her of her condition, and she is overcome with grief.

The trespassing young man is discovered by the King, who becomes enraged that he has broken his edict and told his daughter of her blindness. The young man is somehow able to miraculously cure her blindness and they live happily ever after.

The opera was in Russian. But luckily there were subtitles... In Swedish.

I didn't understand much of it, but it was beautiful nonetheless. The actors were incredible; it was constantly stunning to listen to them fill the entire space, seemingly effortlessly, with nothing but their voices. They are not miked.

It was totally beautiful, and pretty reasonably priced. It's fun to have an excuse to dress up every once in a while!