From Swedish Film Classic to the Opera Stage

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ABOUT FANNY AND ALEXANDER

The story
Christmas Eve. Staff are just finishing trimming the splendid Christmas tree at the Ekdahl family home in Sweden. The Ekdahls run the local theatre and the young Fanny and Alexander also seem to have been born for the stage. The living room soon fills with the sound of laughter and clinking glasses as well as delicious smells. In the early hours, as the hubbub subsides to naughty giggles and the inebriated guests crawl under the covers (with or without their own partners), the children dream at the spectacle of their magic lantern. Nothing suggests that all warmth will soon disappear from their lives when their father Oscar dies unexpectedly and their mother Emilie soon gets married again, this time to the authoritarian bishop Edvard Vergérus. He is keen to discipline the children and rid Alexander of his vivid fantasies, harshly if necessary …

The team

Fanny and Alexander is a new creation by the Swedish, New-York-based composer Mikael Karlsson and the librettist Royce Vavrek. It’s a grandiose family chronicle that requires grandiose means. For her debut at La Monnaie, conductor Ariane Matiakh will turn her attention to a score that combines the acoustic sound of a symphony orchestra with ingenious surround electronics, commanding a cast of fourteen soloists, among whom none other than Thomas Hampson and Swedish icons such as Anne Sofie von Otter and Loa Falkman. Flemish director Ivo Van Hove, who is intimately familiar with Bergman’s work, will dig deep into the soul of his characters and, together with scenographer Jan Versweyveld, will create scenes that gradually unfold into a spectral hall of mirrors. A fantasy world that stubbornly goes against harsh reality – and may ultimately overcome it.

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