Why should they sing?

The audience at the premiere seems to have been well read, and the pleasure of recognition spread and was contagious. The most clear-spoken performers had also been chosen, in the knowledge that the first complaint of an audience that includes lots of children is that one can’t make out the words. Olle Persson, Susann Végh, Ketil Hugaas and Niklas Björling Rygert ensure that each word can be heard. But Marianne Hellgren Staykov’s parrot should be given more virtuoso passages than it got – children love a singing circus! Otherwise the most virtuoso part was the delightful sinfonia for car horns. Unexpectedly magical was the bathing scene in which Loranga, Masarin and Gustav tattoo each other with ballpoint pens, subtly accompanied by the radio’s hypnotic “En sjöman älskar havets våg” (A Sailor Loves the Ocean’s Waves). It is a glimpse into Harpo Marx’s heaven, and you could have heard a pin drop in the audience.