It has definitely been as playful at the Royal Swedish Opera before this – but surely there has rarely been seen so many happy and pleasant police officers. And never such well-dressed ones.
Three woofs of approval indeed. The Royal Swedish Opera is and continues to be the playground for the opera version of Barbro Lindgren’s “Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang”. Saturday saw the world premiere of the opera by Carl Unander-Scharin, who safeguards the wild, unbridled fantastic aspects of Lindgren’s story.
It is a pleasant and very light-hearted existence – at least until Gustav the Thief steps into the plot. He immediately makes it clear that the person who takes things, has things. “I learned that from my father,” he proclaims.
All the free-and-easy, unbridled aspects of Barbro Lindgren’s terrific books are present, and now and then we enter an interactive phase in which the audience gets to participate with great enthusiasm. Ketil Hugaas’ powerfully rumbling bass baritone in particular is given more room to expand in the second act, which begins with him stepping up onto the conductor’s podium with dignified steps and first conducting the audience before turning to the orchestra, but with the wrong baton.
The entire orchestra plays in unusually dilatory slow motion until Hugaas gets hold of the right baton but then starts to wave it carelessly and too quickly.
If the first act is Loranga’s and the tigers’, the second belongs to Dartanjang, the prisoners, the dazzling scenography and the pop-like music that is so lively. Everything together is so well-balanced and arranged so that the finale becomes that precise, clear-as-a-bell climax with Dartanjang as a glitzy pop artist with an electric guitar and everything.