September 19, 1998. A night at the Opera.

While in Stockholm we want to take advantage of all the things that a big city affords. Luckily for us, in 1998 Stockholm is the official Cultural Capital of Europe. While most of the events were held over the summer there are still quite a few things to do this fall.

We have already been to the Royal Opera twice and plan to go again.

The entrance is grand, as you would expect.

The first opera we saw was Madame Butterfly (by Puccini) which Lee enjoyed but I found too melodramatic. We had seats pretty close to the ceiling (what our friend Lars calls "nose-bleed seats" due to the altitude) but they only cost $12. We had trouble following the story since the "sur-titles" were in Swedish and we somehow had confused the opera with the Madame Butterfly who was actually a man. We spent most of the play trying to fit what was happening on stage to the wrong story and ended up pretty confused!

At left: an interior shot showing some of the ceiling in the opera house. The King's box is the one near the curtain.

On Tuesday we saw Otello by Verdi. Another visitor at KTH and her husband also had tickets, so we met for dinner beforehand. I found the staging, story, and production of Otello to be much more compelling than M.Butterfly. I also managed to find a very good synopsis of the opera on the web so we knew what was happening at all times.

Our seats for Otello were about the best in the house. We were in the first balcony in box seats which gave us large comfortable chairs (like living room chairs), lots of leg room, and a great view. These were $50 each, which compared with San Francisco prices is quite a deal and worth the extra.

Intermission on the first balcony is quite a different thing than intermission in the attic.

Every surface in the hall is covered in gold or paintings. A really elegant and impressive room.

In the cheap seats you can buy soda and coffee at intermission while in the box seats there is a choice of champagnes.

On display are costumes going back a couple of hundred years!

From this room you can also go out on the balcony overlooking Gustav Adolfs Torg, which is a square with some impressive buildings and from here you can see the water and the old town.